I have always loved the perspective of things happening “for us” rather than “to us”.  Lately, I have been wondering about the mental benefit of making this division in my mind between the words “for me” and “to me”. (You know how much I love words and my mind often does play mental gymnastics with words.)

In the last four months, I have had three things happen in my professional and personal life that I feel were definitely done “to me”.  Things that affected my life, without any type of discussion or collaboration beforehand. In one single moment, my life shifted. 

Fundamental.

Unprovoked.

Future shifting.

Life altering changes.

They have all ended up progressing me towards a positive, as I know when unforeseen things happen we can either become wounded or wise. I always choose wise.  But it still feels like these three things were foisted on me.

The latest example was my childhood kitchen table. The wooden, handcrafted fifty year old table that we ate every dinner at together as a family, celebrated birthdays and Christmases at, where my mom did her marking and my dad did his bookkeeping for his business. The hub of my family home growing up in Northern British Columbia where many memories were made. One night, a few weeks ago, I received a text from my dad with a picture of a new dining room set. Where had the kitchen table gone you ask? My father had suddenly decided to gift it to his girlfriend’s son. This one moment with the loss of my childhood table, which symbolized so many things about my sweet mom, brought me to my knees and made me reflect on all these moments in the last four months where things were simply done.

Gone.

Without thought of me.

Without any conversation beforehand.

Nothing I can say to change things “back”.

Done.

Unrecoverable.

Unchangeable.

Simply done and done.

As I sit in the sun today, I am not reframing these three events so that they sit better in my soul, I am simply sitting with this feeling and becoming wiser in who I allow into my life, what I hold tightly to and how I am spending my time.  Time is our greatest commodity friends.

Who? 

What? 

When? 

These are all up to me and allow me to live with JOY even when things happen “for” and “to” me.  

I am enough. 

You are enough. 

Keep being conscious of your who, what and when. 

Happy wonderful Wednesday folks and love what you do.

Xoxo Joanna