Finding Peace by Lynn Lovegreen

 ICYMI, First posted here in July, 2021

 

In our current world, it can be hard to find peace of mind. It’s easy to get overwhelmed by the news or the negative things in our lives. But it’s essential for our mental and physical health to take a step back and find peace. Here are a few ideas in case you need some to get you started.

 

Find one beautiful thing and focus on that for a minute or two. Maybe you have a plant or picture in your home, or there are lovely clouds out your window. Just enjoy the beauty and breathe.

Spend time with someone you love. You might live with a person your love, or have a friend or family member you can be with in person or call on the phone. Whoever it is, carve out a little time with them. Or if it’s not a person, maybe there’s a pet you love—that can count, too.

 

Give yourself some “me” time. Maybe you’re stretched thin from all the obligations others place on you, or you place on yourself. In that case, be the friend to yourself that you are for others. Take time to do something for yourself. Take a walk, read a book, whatever you need to recharge. 

 

Take a deep breath and do what you need to do. Find some peace. You are worth it.

 

Lynn Lovegreen has lived in Alaska for over fifty years. After twenty years in the classroom, she retired to make more time for writing. She enjoys her friends and family, reading, and volunteering at her local library. Her young adult historical fiction is set in Alaska, a great place for drama, romance, and independent characters. See her website at www.lynnlovegreen.com. You can also find her on Facebook and Instagram.

Peace of mind...

 I must admit that this month's topic -- Peace --was a difficult one for me to wrap my brain around and write about. Usually, my blogs are already written and scheduled weeks before they need to be posted. Not this month.

After much consideration and thought, I finally figured I'd write about something near and dear to me: peace of mind.

Let me 'esplain.

I've been dealing with several family issues of late at opposite ends of the life spectrum. 

Many of you may know my mother recently broke her second hip in three years due to a fall at home. My parents, Mom is 85, and stepdad is 83, live in a mobile home 25 miles from me in another state. They have been self-sufficient and independent forever and they are a bit isolationist, in that they have no family ( except me) or friends. They were housebound for 16 months during the height of the pandemic and I have been relegated to managing their lives for them. I cook for them, pay their bills, shop for them and clean their house once a week. While my mother spent 2 months in the rehab center learning how to walk again, I would travel twice weekly to see her and take my stepdad to visit her. He was lost without her. They have been married almost 60 years and have done, and do, everything together as a unit. My parents never learned how to drive a car so I am their sole means of transport anywhere.

I don't tell you all this for any other reason but this: my mother was sent home last month from the rehab and since then I have been visiting them twice a week, and still doing all the above for them, but my peace of mind comes from knowing they are together again and able to continue to live in their own home. Yes, I run it for them and basically manage their lives, but they are together. My parents are that quintessential couple where if one partner dies, the other will die soon after of a broken heart.

To know I can keep them in their own home, together, until that happens makes my heart and mind calm.

The other end of the spectrum is that my daughter is having her first child in a few months. And as any potential grandmother would, I was very worried in the beginning that she would have a good pregnancy. She really didn't because she was tired and nauseous for almost 6 months - just like I was with her. Apples and trees, people; apples and trees. Plus, she got pregnant during the pandemic, so my anxiety went through the roof.

But, she has crossed over into her seventh month and all is well. She has a wonderful, supportive, and loving husband and excellent access to health care. She is healthy, happy and finally feeling like her old self. Well, as much as she can with a baby on board, so my peace of mind has returned. Yes, I'm still worried about the delivery and the first three months of the baby's life, but I am secure in the hope that all will be well.

Peace of mind is an elusive thing nowadays. Worry about Covid, the economy, my mortality and that of those around me, the horrible state of the world right now, have all taken a toll on me the last year.  To be granted some peace of mind, body and spirit is a life-sustaining aspect of my daily existence.

So, I'll end with a quote that I have always  loved: