Daily Inspiration 2-26-16

"Endings are 

awesome new beginnings 

in disguise." 

-- Karen Salmansohn 

I am more aware of how much I smile and laugh every single day. It didn't use to be that way. I used to be much more serious, focusing on what needs to be done, what hasn't been done yet, on things I couldn't really control, and all that seriousness took a toll on my joy. I would laugh and smile, just nowhere near as much.

Now, I worry very little if at all. I am finally learning that it never ever helped at any point in my life anyway, so why even do it at all? Now, often I will just be enjoying myself sitting on the tailgate of my pickup in my carport and find myself smiling and laughing at thoughts, watching the birds in the courtyard flitting about eating and bathing. It's so interesting how my life has changed.

As I have gotten older, I find more people have passed on, and so I think about that sometimes. Yesterday I was thinking about grief while on my tailgate with a glass of Chardonnay. I recall shedding almost no tears when my wife passed nearing three years ago. Grief is at the same emotional level as depression and shame. Who wants to go there? Besides, I've come to know that everything happens for a reason. There are no such things as random events, and every cloud has a silver lining.

Instead of grieving for my wife, which is more like feeling sorry for myself than anything, I celebrated my grand opportunity in life to know her a little and to share some time with her on this planet and to find joy in her choices and how she lived her life. I'm still celebrating that. She's only physically gone as a human body, but she is all around my home in so many ways. She is reflected in her children and in the lives of those that she touched while here. Why would there be grief?

People don't have to pass to move out of our lives. My first wife and I finally split for good after 16 years in 1986. Both of our lives improved so dramatically by that ending. Endings really are awesome new beginnings. I lost my last job in the car business at the height of my commercial truck success (that must be where that name came from. . .), and the list of benefits and experiences that I have had as a result, including writing a book is very long. Very long.

As I look back with my 20/20 hindsight at so many endings, I see that at the time some of them seemed traumatic, but as I allowed myself to let go of that feeling sorry for myself attitude, I could then see the benefits beginning already. Every single ending that comes to my mind has had awesome--let me repeat appropriately--AWESOME new beginnings. Understanding that this has always been the case as far back as I can remember, not only is there no reason for grief at the bottom of the emotional scale, but there is ample reason for joy at the top of the scale realizing that grand things are about to manifest.


I Find Myself Looking Forward With Anticipation At The Next Ending. . . 

Spread Some Joy Today--by just thinking fun thoughts. It's really that easy.