Life Happens!

No Air Conditioning, Tough Dental Surgery, a Tornado and a 4-Day Power Outage.

Aug 16, 2024

It’s been a challenging month for our family. Our air conditioning unit broke in July and needed replacing, a tornado ripped through our town and we lost power and cell phone service for 4 days and just when things returned to normal our son Michael had an unexpectedly rough recovery from some dental surgery this week. Let’s just say that it has NOT been a summer of smooth sailing for us!

a lighthouse surrounded by waves in the ocean — Photo by Gary Walker-Jones on Unsplash

To be clear, I’m not looking for sympathy here. We are all doing fine now. The AC unit was installed today, the power returned a few days ago and Michael was able to have some applesauce this afternoon! To be perfectly honest, this is my indirect way of telling you to lower your expectations for today’s post! 🤷‍♀️

We all must deal with difficult times in our lives and we each have different ways that we handle these challenges. Here are some approaches that I’ve taken in the past:

The “whoa is me approach” where I sulk and feel bad for myself.
The “I’m better off than most people approach” where I tell myself that I am in a much better place than most people who are truly suffering in this world.
The “hunker down approach” where I bear down, put on my blinders and “fight” through the situation.
The “avoidance approach” where I pretend that everything is fine and push ahead as if everything is going well.

I call my current approach “This too shall pass” and it has been much more effective for me. There is something to be said for accumulating life’s experiences and realizing that a bad situation doesn’t last forever. Now I try to take one moment at a time and do my best to be with it in an objective non-judgmental way. This may seem a bit “hippy dippy” but it really works. If we are simply present for each moment as it unfolds, we are able to take ourselves out of the “story”. Sometimes, I will stop, ground myself and ask the question, “what is here now?” That’s it. Then I go from there.