I get to serve a lot of people at my chiropractic office and many of them I have seen for many, many years. This is not everyone, but this is a taste of how some of the conversations begin…
Me: “How are you?” Them: “Eh…”
or
Me: “How has your week started?” Them: “It’s ok.”
or
Me: “Has you had a good day?” Them: “Eh…”
or
Me: “Has your week started well?” Them: “Not bad.”
or
Me: “What are your plans for this beautiful evening?” Them: “Not sure.”
I am by no means saying that these are not perfectly acceptable answers to my rather regular questions, it is absolutely ok to say whatever you feel like. The reason I am bringing this up is because some of these people say the same things over and over for YEARS! When I say that, I really mean they have been un-excited about life for as many years as I have known them. It almost
seems like they live Monday through Friday just to get to the weekend. Then when I ask them how their weekend went, they say “Eh, it was ok.”REALLY?!?!?!?! WHAT GIVES???
LIFE IS LIFE. Sometimes there isn’t anything real “exciting” going on, no cool vacation to look forward to, didn’t win the lottery recently, no brand new home to move into, still driving the same old car, no crazy shopping spree to go on…nothing exciting at all. Ever thought for a moment that what happens on a regular daily basis is ENOUGH to get excited about?
Life is absolutely filled to the brim with mundane, routine stuff. As human beings we have to get up in the morning, it is probably a really good idea to eat breakfast and take a shower and most will be get ready for work (either inside the home or outside the home) or school. We will then put ourselves in a vehicle of some sort and transport ourselves somewhere where we will spend the next 8-12 hours (1/3-1/2) of our days doing something to earn a living. During that time we will probably take a break for lunch, maybe find a lunch buddy to chat with and then go back to work or school (even if you are at home raising a family, there is probably a routine you fall into). We will more than likely jump back in a vehicle of some sort and drive ourselves back to the place where we started our day, find a little more food, maybe get some sort of exercise in, brush our teeth and lay down for the night to rest only to get up and do the same thing all over again the next day…and the next day…and the next day. Ugh, just writing that sounds like a drag.
But...LIFE IS LIFE!! What if you started your day with the idea that “gosh it is really good to wake up on the top side of the grass!“? What if that is the attitude you began the day with…an ATTITUDE OF GRATITUDE for even getting another day to live? What happens if you sat a few extra seconds and decided to actually TASTE and EXPERIENCE your breakfast? What textures are there? What tastes are happening in my mouth? It is so neat that I can eat a bowl of cereal and it becomes muscles, tissues, organs and glands! Then when you are in the shower…how about really feeling and experiencing what it takes to clean your body. How does the water feel? What smells are present? Or just be grateful to have clean, fresh, warm water to bathe in everyday!
If you let it, the drive to work will take on a life of its own…so many things to look at inside and outside of the vehicle. This time of year the leaves are changing and it is beautiful! And suddenly we are grateful for the stop lights and stop signs because they make us pause and have a moment before moving forward and that can become a moment to give thanks for the good ‘ol car that you get to drive everyday. Once at work, instead of dreading all the filing you have to do, the emails you have to return or the annoying people you have to deal with…take a glance out to what is the big picture of what you are doing on a daly basis. Can you count the number of lives you have effected just because you do the work you do? How are you serving others?
The drive home, exercise, stopping in for your chiropractic adjustment, getting dinner, spending some time with your family and then hitting the sack for another night of rest to be able to recharge to do it all again tomorrow…they all take on a new meaning if we become a little more present and show just a smidgen more enthusiasm while doing them. When you are asked “how was your day?” after you spent a day like that, you will actually want to say “IT WAS GREAT! For what it was, it really was great!” Now that doesn’t mean that other people’s day wasn’t 100 times more fun than yours, according to your perception…but in the grand scheme of things, their day doesn’t matter and there is absolutely no reason to try to compare your day to someone else’s day. It is YOUR LIFE and this LIFE full of mundane-ness is going REALLY FREAKIN’ QUICKLY!!! We are here to do this one time and I cannot figure out one good reason to not get excited about the mundane-ness and routine-full-ness…because 90% of what we do on a daily basis is exactly that.
So think about the concept of SUPER EXCITING, ABSOLUTELY AMAZING, REALLY FUN, AWESOME, BREATH-TAKING, PULSE INCREASING, HAIR RAISING, TERRIFICALLY FANTASTIC mundane-ness. It exists. Trust me, I know. The key to it, its a conscious choice you get to make Enjoy yourself, every day of your life…and consider this a triple-dog dare to you to have some fun going through your routine tomorrow…and then let me know how it goes. If you are able to make a small shift, you will notice something about life…that it is REALLY, REALLY GOOD. I would love to hear your stories. 🙂
On a daily basis I feel blessed to be born into this family. I have 3 brothers that weren’t always my favorite people, but over the years have evolved to be some of the coolest cats around. They are great friends to me and 2 of them have married some pretty amazing a wonderful women that I get to call sister-in-laws. Between the two that are married, there are 3 children…and I may be a biased “Aunt E” but I have to say they are some of the brightest, most wonderful children I know. It is awesome to watch them learn about the world and fun to see them put pieces of the puzzle together. My third brother is dating one of the sweetest girls I have ever met and I look forward to seeing what their future holds.
My mom is one of the greatest gals on the planet and has married one of the most amazing men that anyone could ever know. My 3 brothers and I are so grateful to have someone like him in our lives. He comes with 2 boys that are older than us and a daughter that is younger. All of them are such a blast to hang out with. The guys are feisty, the most obnoxious U of Michigan fans but so much fun. They are both married and have 3 children between them. I feel like I have gotten to know the 7 year old son of the oldest one the best. This kid happens to be one of the coolest 7 year olds you could ever meet. He loves being around kids and equally enjoys spending time with adults…and the greatest part is he adds so much to either scenario. It absolutely amazes me. My step sister lives a bit of a distance from Michigan and we enjoy time spent with her and her husband though it seems far between visits due to location.
Now imagine this group of super cool people all hanging out in “up north” Michigan at an awesome house on the river, camping in the back yard, bonfires, walks, long runs, bike rides, college football, meals, music, dancing, duck races, reading, exploring, fishing, laughing, and telling stories. That is how my last weekend was spent.
See why I feel blessed? Have you counted your blessings lately?
I broke down this morning…on my run. I broke down and found myself in tears. Some of you know that I have been training really hard for a sprint distance triathlon that is coming up this weekend. My mornings are spent swimming or running or both. I have been working super hard on the swimming part of it because that is my biggest challenge of the triathlon sport. The distances for the race are 750 meter swim, 12 mile bike, and 5K run.
This morning I got up and put on all my gear to jump in the lake and swim. It really wasn’t what I wanted to do but I knew I had no choice. I found myself standing in waist high water not wanting to take the plunge…literally. I learned to swim just last year and I am still learning the technicalities of the stroke and breathing and rhythm. I really wish I would have learned how to put all that together many years ago. It is hard to teach an old dog new tricks…though it is possible. I hired a swim instructor over the past couple weeks and have learned so much from her.
Back in 2006 I was diagnosed with a hole in my heart. It is a hole that is there while in utero but is supposed to close shortly after birth. There is a small percentage of the population that has this challenge. I constantly push my body to it’s limits. Because of the hole, some of my blood skips the lungs and the oxygenation process and so my body ends up with a lower oxygen carrying capacity. I have a challenge improving my running times and biking times because I can only breathe so hard. Then I add the variable of the breathing process while swimming and only being able to take in so much air per stroke. I end up running out of oxygen quickly.
This morning my swim felt awful. It was hard, I had to stop a lot and I got really frusturated when I am found myself gasping for air…yet again. I got back to my dock, switched to my running gear and took off with the dog for a little over 2 miles. It was a simple run and a beautiful morning however I was so stuck in frustration about my swim that I had the thought “I am not going to be able to finish that swim on Sunday.” Admitting to a limitation is a very difficult thing because there isn’t much more that I want but to be able to swim with ease, especially with how hard I have been working on it lately. It is frustrating and I allowed myself to go to tears for a few moments. Then I realized that I cannot run and cry at the same time so I better pull it back together…which I did and finished my run easily.
I came across a quote last night that I will keep close to my heart this week. It goes something like “Strength isn’t doing something that you know you can do, it is doing something that you once thought you couldn’t.” I will keep practicing and on Sunday, August 19th, ready or not, at 8:00AM I will be heading into the Traverse City Bay and swimming 750 meters, followed by a bike and a run. I will be in a shorty wetsuit because it will allow me to, at the very least, stay buoyant and warm. I will put one arm in front of the other, and be grateful for my two arms, and kick, and be grateful for my two legs, to propel myself forward for those 750 meters. If you are reading this right now and you think of it when you wake up that morning, send me a little prayer of strength and endurance.
I have completed a full marathon (ran 26.2 miles) however this is a pretty close second when it comes to anxiety before a race. I do a lot of races and push my limits on a regular basis just to see where those limits are. I am motivated by the feeling of completing them and being awarded a medal, to look back on, for participating, although some races do not hand out medals. I never expect to win and I look at completion of the race as the win. All I have to say is there better be a medal at the finish line of this particular race. I broke down this morning, but I will keep my chin up!
It’s been quite a few years since I rode a roller coaster. I had dinner with a friend the other night and they had mentioned that Cedar Point http://www.cedarpoint.com has a new “fast pass” that makes the day so much more enjoyable with faster lines. There is a behind the scenes entrance to all the major rides and when people are waiting 1-2 hours for a ride, this “fast pass” line takes about 20 minutes. It is over double the price of a normal ticket but worth every penny!
Front Seat of Maverick
Once I decided to go and roped a friend to go with me, my goal was to ride a couple of my favorite roller coasters, the Maverick and the Millennium Force, all day long…and that is exactly what we did. I love both of these roller coasters for different reasons. Millennium Force is just plain HUGE and really fast, rising to 310 feet, 80 degree drop, and traveling at 93 miles per hour. The Maverick is a totally different beast and travels a mere 70mph but is full of twists and turns and tunnels and is meant to mimic a rodeo.
The lines moved so quickly it was actually worth waiting a couple extra minutes to ride in the front seat of the Maverick. It is a game changer to experience that ride from the front seat. You get to see everything first hand and shooting up and over a hill with a 95 degree drop (more than vertical) really gets the butterflies and adrenaline moving! From there it is up and over another hill, twist one way, twist the other, over, under and around for about 2 min 30 sec. In the middle there is a pitch black tunnel that you come to a complete stop in. Anxiety builds while sitting in the dark waiting for the next phase. You are then blasted through and out of the tunnel and twist one way, then then other, over under and around again until you come to a complete stop at the end. Go try it sometime…it is a wild rush!
Of course as I am riding this ride over and over, I am thinking about how it relates to life. Life has its ups and downs. As soon as we are up, we are down, and when we reach the bottom, we are already heading back up. Life twists one way, we make a correction and it twists the other way. We get over things, we feel pinned down under things. Just when we have given up and stop to close our eyes and reflect, it is time to open them back up as we are slingshot out of a dark tunnel and more ups and downs and twists and turns. WOW!!!
So what are we supposed to do? How can we gracefully maneuver this ride called LIFE? When I get in line for these roller coasters, I am nervous every single time. I don’t care if I rode that ride 3 times already that day, I am still nervous when I strap myself in. I bank on the fact that there are loads of people, on a daily basis, making it to the end alive and well. I realize if I am strapped into the seat correctly, I have a really good chance of making it safely.
This idea doesn’t work quite so easily and readily for real life because there are no seats, harnesses or seat belts. I relate the harness and seat belt to our ideas and concepts about the world and the seat is the solid foundation we build on. If we figure out what our core values are, keep a positive attitude, and keep laying down a good, solid foundation, we will make it through the ups and downs and twists and turns quite gracefully.
When you get a chance to take a wild ride on a roller coaster, DO IT! When you realize your own life is the roller coaster, EMBRACE IT! Have some fun with it and know that if you have employed the proper harness and seat belt, though its not possible to come out of life alive (that is just against the rules), we can have an enjoyable ride!
Can you relate? Have you been on a wild ride, either literally or figuratively? I would love to hear your stories!
This past weekend I felt very blessed to reconnect with some good friends of mine after years of being apart. As many of you know, I got married when I was 19 years old. I know, I know…what on Earth was I thinking, right? I sometimes laugh when people tell me they get the impression that I have my life together. All I have to say to that is you should have seen me when I was 19!!! The difference between then and now is that at 19 I didn’t have anything figured out and I thought I did, and now I still don’t have anything figured out and I know and have accepted that its possible I never will. Life is an amazing teacher and the more we live, the more we learn, or at least I can only speak for myself.
On Saturday I got to spend some time with my ex-husband’s family. He, and they, were part of my life for 10 years. He was not there this weekend but his sister, whom I was pretty close with, was home visiting family. She called ahead of time to let me know her, her husband and their NEW BABY were going to be in the area and that it would be great to share a meal. It worked out that we met at my ex-in-law’s (I really do not like that phrase) home and sat around the table with her parents and ate lunch.
It was a wonderful couple of hours as there was so much to catch up on. Being in someone’s life for that long, really gets one intertwined in all of the family’s life happenings. We caught up about family, extended family, life events, work, dreams for the future, and of course I got to meet her new baby. The time spent was wonderful, priceless and I feel so blessed. These people were a very big part of my life from the time I was 17 to the end of my 20s. Those are some impressionable years and in each their own way, they helped shape me to be the person I am today. I am forever grateful for their love, support, genrosity, compassion, reliability, entertainment, fun, teaching and connection. They are all near and dear friends of mine though our lives don’t allow for the “near” part of that equation much anymore.
My divorce was very amicable and after being best friends for almost 10 years, we had promised to keep in touch as LIFE MOVES ON. That has gone to the wayside as he is busy with work, a new family and a new baby of his own and my life is busy as well. I am forever grateful for all the adventures we had and all that we taught each other and learned together. I am forever grateful to his family and feel blessed to reconnect from time to time.
LIFE DOES MOVE ON. I still do not have anything figured out though I feel blessed to have these and other angels come and guide me though parts of my own personal journey. My heart overflows with gratitude. Thank you…you all know who you are.
Yesterday I found myself pulling up to a stop sign behind a “Student Driver” car. I happened to be driving behind her (yes I could tell it was a female) and realized it when there were no cars coming either direction but the car didn’t move. Of course with how busy life is these days, it seems like our minds cannot just sit and be delayed even one second without questioning the motives of the person in front of us…and that is when I spotted the signage on the car.
I had a quick flashback to that first day of driver’s education class and I started to wonder what that class would be like these days. My curiosity got the best of me and so I followed (notice I didn’t say tailgated) this driver for a couple miles. It happened to be on my direct route to my next errand so please do not think I was stalking this new student driver…but I guess in a way, I was. I could have gone around her at any moment however I soon realized that it was better to be behind her than anywhere else!!!
She swerved between the lines that marked the road. She went to get on the highway, which was a right turn, and put her left blinker on then caught herself and switched it. Because she was focused so much on the blinker, she completely forgot about the brake pedal and took that turn at a rate of speed I would have been afraid for my life. Then it was the merge into traffic that almost didn’t happen, 50 max speed on the highway swerving inside the lane lines, hitting some rumble strips, taking an exit at a similarly alarming speed as the first turn I witnessed, and slamming on the brakes to the stop sign. I then saw the instructor reach over and grab the wheel as they headed into another turn…God bless those driving instructors…and God bless the runner that was on the side of the road she was about to encounter.
I was astounded that they are allowed to be behind the wheel with such little skill, but that is coming from a girl that was raised on an apple orchard and learned to drive before my 10th birthday…and when it comes down to it, everyone has to start somewhere.
This young driver can teach us so much about maneuvering life!!! Slow life down at the stops and enjoy the scenery for a moment. When you think you are turning left, maybe life wants you to turn right and take things at “inappropriate” speeds. Merging into the flow of what everyone else is doing is sometimes necessary, but take things at your own speed. There are lines drawn for us, but remember that sometimes fun happens outside the lines and the rumble strips make a fun noise and brings us back to being a child. Sometimes exiting a situation at high speeds is necessary and stopping abruptly saves us. In the end, it is often nice to have some guidance from someone who has more experience than us and we never know who is watching us and learning from our mistakes.
We only get one chance in this lifetime…I want to thank this young driver for teaching me so much over those 2 short miles!
Over the past week, my family and I have been mourning the loss of my aunt. Have I told you that my Mom is one of ten kids and my Dad is one of nine? So to say I come from a HUGE family is a slight understatement. My Aunt Lisa was the youngest of my Mom’s siblings and she is also the very youngest of all 19 of them. She died of a heart attack and it was shock to the entire family and everyone in her life at a mere 50 years of age.
Being from such a large family, when tragic things happen, everyone pulls together. We spent 4 full days together talking about the incident, her life, her contributions and where the family will go from here. The conversations were sprinkled with bouts of crying and fits of laughter. We are not short of comedians in our family and the mixture of the humor and the sadness does an interesting thing to the physiology and helps things to process. I am sure you have found yourself in an intense moment that was interrupted by a shift created from laughter.
I learned a lot from sitting around and listening to the stories that were shared. Two important lessons have surfaced from it all that I wanted to share with you.
LESSON #1 : SHOW UP! My Aunt Gail, one of Lisa’s sisters said one of the things that came to mind when she thought about Lisa was that “She showed up.” It is so true…whenever there was something going on, or someone needed something, Lisa showed up. She showed up for family functions and parties. She showed up for her husband and 3 children. She showed up for her own friends and friends of her children. She showed up for the family. She showed up at work and for her co-workers. She showed up. This concept makes me look at my life and ask the question…”Am I showing up?” And furthermore, “How am I showing up?” and “Am I giving it 100%?”
LESSON #2: PLAY FULL OUT! If life was a game, Aunt Lisa played full out. She always had a good time. She celebrated a lot and was usually in the middle of any conversation that was happening. If she didn’t start the conversation but wanted to be in it…you would her her raspy voice say, slightly under her breath, “What are you guys talking about?”. If she was around in the room, you probably could hear her laugh. Somewhere in the Callard lineage there is a gene for loud laughter, and she expressed that gene strongly. After the funeral on Monday, I heard someone say, “You know, she was only 50 when she passed, however she lived more in those 50 years than others do who live into their 80s or 90s.” What a great awareness and awesome perspective to have on what seemed to be a life cut short.
My first real memories of Aunt Lisa were when I would babysit for her children. At the time, she happened to be living in the same subdivision where I currently live and though the house is no longer there, I have vivid memories of being there a lot. Over the past few months I have spent quite a bit of time running the roads around my house, passing that location twice per run and of course, like I do a lot, thinking about life.
With the sudden passing of Lisa last week, and her funeral just a couple days ago, along with my regular morning runs and thoughts about life, that particular location has new meaning to me. I will forever hold it as a place during my runs where I turn inside and remember to SHOW UP everyday and in every way in my life and PLAY FULL OUT! What better way to start the day than with reminders like that. I haven’t dealt with much death up to this point in my life, and am of course dreading the idea of the other 18 passing, however there are always lessons to learn about LIFE from both living and dying…and for that, I am grateful. Thank you Aunt Lisa for those very important lessons and may you rest peacefully.
I got it…bad! I made a HUGE shift in the style and format of my blog and my mind has been trying to process it ever since. Change is the only thing constant in this lifetime, however it is amazing how much of a challenge it is at times. I am excited about this new blog and I hope you enjoy it as well!
I have made some really big life changes in this past month also and I have needed a little extra time and space to process all of that. All good things, really good things, but nonetheless it has been a huge shift.
Standup Paddleboarding at sunset
It almost feels like if my life was a deck of cards and I threw it all up in the air…the processing sometimes feels like I am picking up each card one by one, and placing them in a orderly pile again.
I have learned a lot about myself in this time. I have a strong awareness that I am a “practical” person when it comes to life and especially when it comes to buying things. I buy things that are useful and necessary, or something that I can use in a couple different areas of my life, or something that I can use now but will fit my life for a long time in the future, or something that I can use and someone else could get some use out of it as well, or something that just makese sense. It would be fun, and I know you would get a kick out of it, if there was a way to record my internal dialogue when I am in the process of making a purchase.
I remember back when I was just over a year into practice and I was out shopping. I came across a sweater that I absolutely loved and I really wanted to buy it. Being a student for so many years, the thought of buying a sweater that costs over $70 (or any article of clothing besides a winter jacket) was not even in question. I saw the sweater, I tried it on, it was (and still is) beatufiul and I knew I would get good use out of it. It took me 5 phone calls to girlfriends and a call to my mother in order for me to rationalize and justify the purchase. So if that was what happened on the outside, just imagine the internal dialogue, I torture myself at times when it comes to making almost all purchases.
What I realize in the midst of the interal dialogue termoil is that it takes some fun out of it, being practical all the time takes some fun out of life. Then add to that the fact that the weeks, months and years are slipping by life going WAY TOO FAST!!!
So my goal is to have more fun. Do more things that make me smile and laugh and not take things so seriously. I will be playing my music loudly and singing and dancing in my car…and at home with Choco (my chocolate lab)…on a regular basis. If you see me, JOIN ME! I will hang out with people that inspire me and look for groups of people to be around that make me laugh. I will spend more time seeing the world through the eyes of litlte ones…my neices and nephew and all the rest of the kids in my practice and in my life. I will spend more time around the water, at the yoga studio, in my kayak, in my running shoes, in my swimming goggles, on my paddleboard, with my family and with my friends, and in front of the computer blogging…because that is what I love to do!
What things to you love to do? Life is so, so short…and we only get one chance.
There is a song that runs through my mind lately, mostly because I have heard it so much on my Rusted Root Pandora Station (a highly recommended station, by the way), but also because after I hear it, my mind ponders the message for quite some time. It goes something like this…
“You can’t always get what you want. You can’t always get what you want. You can’t always get what you want. But if you try sometime…you just might find… YOU GET WHAT YOU NEED!”
I have had some very interesting life lessons over the past years, as I am sure we all have. I have a strong conviction that although we are presented with most things that are WAY outside our control, by the use of gratitude and a strong focus on what we want, we are powerful creators of our lives and experiences. I also realize that sometimes the things that we think we want in our lives or experiences that we want to have happen, are very limiting in the grand scheme of things. There is a much bigger picture to this life than what we can actually see and grasp with our thoughts.
Have you ever sat down and wrote out goals? made a “to do” list? Have you ever thought about what you would like to have happen in 5 years? 10 years? Have you ever quieted down your life enough and heard things come from inside that sounded like “I want a new job.” “I want to make more money.” “I want to be in a relationship.” “I want to be in a different relationship.” “I want a new house.” “I want a new car.” “I want to win the Mega-Millions.” Does any of that sound familiar?
What LIFE has taught me is that what we call our “wants” are very limiting. If ALL and ONLY our wants came to fruition, we would live a small life. Now, when I say small, I don’t mean that in a negative way, more the idea that it would be limiting, like looking over a lake and seeing that as the only possibility of a large body of water without having any concept of the ocean.
Having a direction and steering life with GRATITUDE can open up limitless possibilities. Our “wants” are one thing…but what happens if you don’t get what you “want”? I have a strong faith in the concept that LIFE sends the perfect people, things and experiences to us in the perfect timing in order for us to maximize our potential for learning, growth and evolution. In the moment, it may be very difficult to see the perfection…but most of you have probably experienced that in retrospect it was exactly what you needed. So in other words it is true that…”YOU CAN”T ALWAYS GET WHAT YOU…but you just might find YOU GET WHAT YOU NEED!” Be open to the amazing twists and turns of LIFE, take some risks and get outside of your box of “wants”…we only get one chance.
Because I choose to care for the patient with the dis-ease, not the disease.
seems like they live Monday through Friday just to get to the weekend. Then when I ask them how their weekend went, they say “Eh, it was ok.” REALLY?!?!?!?! WHAT GIVES???
