These are the four things T prescribed for my ailing heart last week. I'd been feeling blue for the past two weeks and hadn't talked to her in three.
"Compassion is sympathy coupled with action." I read this on a train poster almost a decade ago and I still remember it. I feel so much for so many that it often leaves me immobile. Although my heart is in the right place, it takes a while for my hands to come into action. I'm a thinker, an analyzer and much less a compulsive doer. I need to figure out less and take action more.
Gratitude. Giving thanks for the good in your life. I know I'm not alone when I say I focus on the parts of my life that need improvement rather than the positive things. I'm pessimistic by nature: quietly hoping for the best, fully expecting the worst and then shocked when the best actually pulls through. I've let the negative overshadow the positive and it's been a struggle to let the sun shine in. The forecast seems to be forever cloudy with a chance of blah.
Of the four remedies, faith is the one I crave most. The blind trust that things will work out as they're meant to be. I need and want to believe there's a being so much more powerful than me watching over my every stumble, success, heartache and joy. I don't want to carry this weight anymore, but I have a hard time believing in what I cannot see or control. I want to trust more and question less.
On Sunday, I went to church for the first time in a long while. I've never been the religious type, always questioning everything the Bible proclaims. But Sunday's sermon struck a chord: we need others to multiply our joys and minimize our sorrows because we cannot do this for ourselves. Meanwhile, I'd been busy doing the exact opposite by shutting everyone out and myself in.
So why didn't I automatically choose love as my preferred prescription? Because it's hard to love others when you don't fully love yourself. Clichéd yet true and it's on the needs improvement list. In the meantime, I know my cup runneth over with love. Even when everything in front of me seems gray, I know it's there coloring the background. I have love from my family, love from my friends. I even have love from strangers who wish me well from miles away.
No, love I have plenty. It's faith I need to remind me this is all for a reason and that someday the stars will align just for me.
Image: My own
"Compassion is sympathy coupled with action." I read this on a train poster almost a decade ago and I still remember it. I feel so much for so many that it often leaves me immobile. Although my heart is in the right place, it takes a while for my hands to come into action. I'm a thinker, an analyzer and much less a compulsive doer. I need to figure out less and take action more.
Gratitude. Giving thanks for the good in your life. I know I'm not alone when I say I focus on the parts of my life that need improvement rather than the positive things. I'm pessimistic by nature: quietly hoping for the best, fully expecting the worst and then shocked when the best actually pulls through. I've let the negative overshadow the positive and it's been a struggle to let the sun shine in. The forecast seems to be forever cloudy with a chance of blah.
Of the four remedies, faith is the one I crave most. The blind trust that things will work out as they're meant to be. I need and want to believe there's a being so much more powerful than me watching over my every stumble, success, heartache and joy. I don't want to carry this weight anymore, but I have a hard time believing in what I cannot see or control. I want to trust more and question less.
On Sunday, I went to church for the first time in a long while. I've never been the religious type, always questioning everything the Bible proclaims. But Sunday's sermon struck a chord: we need others to multiply our joys and minimize our sorrows because we cannot do this for ourselves. Meanwhile, I'd been busy doing the exact opposite by shutting everyone out and myself in.
So why didn't I automatically choose love as my preferred prescription? Because it's hard to love others when you don't fully love yourself. Clichéd yet true and it's on the needs improvement list. In the meantime, I know my cup runneth over with love. Even when everything in front of me seems gray, I know it's there coloring the background. I have love from my family, love from my friends. I even have love from strangers who wish me well from miles away.
No, love I have plenty. It's faith I need to remind me this is all for a reason and that someday the stars will align just for me.
Image: My own