TAKE THINGS STEP BY STEP

"The key is to take things step by step. Otherwise, recovery will be a long, slow process." It was in reference to brain injury and was on Colette Amelia's blog tonight.

It set up a firestorm of thought. People I know are suffering, perhaps even me. They want things--recovery, situations changed, excess weight gone, relationships changed, a baby, to have grief over a loved gone, to feel successful. They might want their children to be happy when they are not, children to do better at life, at school, and to have better friends, to quit rebelling, etc.,

They/we want recovery from whatever it is they are dealing with, and they/we want it now. It's like that old saying, "God, please give me patience. Now!"

What's wrong with slow progress? Why do we have to have it now? Why can't we be happy that we might have the chance of having what we want? Or the thought that today is one day closer to maybe getting what we want? We might not get it, but we might. Maybe we shouldn't be distressed and anxious. And what happens if we don't get what we want? Maybe we will get something else, instead. Maybe something better.

Okay, you say, what about the people who are dying? And then they die? What then, Miss Smarty Pants? Did they get what they wanted?

I don't know. Maybe when they got "there" they found out that they really wanted to be "there." I've heard stories of people dying and having to come back to their bodies and they didn't want to, no matter who or what they had left on earth. They had to be persuaded and sometimes even forced. This happened to my niece. She died and met her Grandma--my mom. She didn't want to come back. Mom had to get a little bit testy with her and told her, in no uncertain terms, that she would go back, and go back she did!

Well, this blog post got away from me. I had no idea it was going in this direction. I just wanted to think that maybe we shouldn't be unhappy with the progress we or others are making--or not making--as maybe we/they are making progress even though it looks like we/they are not. So, there you have it.

Be happy tonight. Everything is under control, even if it doesn't seem like it.

Slow progress is still progress. Give yourself a break. You're doing all right.

And you know darn well that I'm giving this advice to myself first and foremost. And I'm trying to take it. And it's hard to swallow but I'm working at it. Slow and steady. Baby steps, maybe but steps, never the less. Listen to yourself, Lynne. Just listen.

Thanks, Colette for the good advice.