beach – Aspirational Adventures

Colwyn Bay 6th January 2024 photographed by myself

It is that season where we look back and look forward. A time when we talk about our best times over the last year and our worst times. A time when we talk about and make plans for the future.

I’ve been reading Josh Luke Smith’s thoughts which he has been sending out each day since 1st Jan. This verse struck me from the poem he shared

We must not define our lives by our worst days, and neither should we by our best; most of life is in the middle.
Joshua Luke Smith – This is the main event

This photograph I’ve shared is from a walk my husband, daughter, my dog and myself did yesterday. It was an ordinary walk along and ordinary beach. We talked about ordinary things then went to the pub. Ordinary

Neither of my children could make it up for Christmas. 2nd January was the first time my daughter was able to come and has managed to be with us for the whole week. But she’s tired after working all through December, over Christmas and over New Year in hospitality. She’s tired and needs a bit of family downtime. We’ve done a lot of sitting about and chatting. One afternoon her and the dog fell asleep on the couch whilst I was reading. We did one day where we went out to lunch so she could get a new coat. But it was all low key. All ordinary. It was life lived in the middle point between best and worst.

But as Josh says in all his writings for this year – and it is a phrase he uses often – it is the ordinary that is the “main event”. If we spend our time waiting for the amazing or even wallowing in the awful we will miss out on so much. God promises to be with us ALL the time.

Yes God promises to be with us when things get tough and life is awful and when we need to be enfolded in their loving arms. God promises to rejoice with us when things are amazing and shout with us. Though often in the great times, and even in the good times, we forget to acknowledge God. But God is with us ALWAYS.

With this in my head it is helping me realise to just acknowledge God in the washing up, in the deep cleaning the kitchen which I did this morning because husband and daughter have gone for hike in the sunshine that has miraculously appeared over North Wales. I have got good at remembering to praise God for the beauty in my local park but this whole thing of remembering that actually it is the life we live day in day which is our “main event“, which is our lives, is something to be grasped

I suppose it is what mindfulness is deep down, but often that has been turned into a “thing.” – eg “I am being mindful” or whatever. But this is just knowing that all my life, whether good, bad, indifferent, whether mindful or forgetful, all of this is my life. All of this is the main event of my life.

Dog enjoying the beach. For the dog each moment of every day is just what it is!

Perfect Day

Photos taken at Newborough Beach and Plas Newydd August 2023 by myself

What is your perfect day?

Well I would have said on Thursday that that was my perfect day – beach, icecream, no agenda. But then on Friday I got my sheets dried in the sunshine; perfect day. Then Saturday a great morning workshop followed by a great movie in the evening. But then Sunday we had a lovely walk on a new bit of coastal path. New for us at least. All great. All with a bit of perfect but also probably a bit of not so perfect.

I got to wondering if a perfect day is actually a state of mind. Since starting part time paid work have I started to see that as a chore and the other things as nearer to perfect? I wonder how things would change at work if I started to pick out the perfect things there.

In the Bible it says

whatever is true, whatever is noble, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is admirable—if anything is excellent or praiseworthy—think about such things.
Philippians 4:8

I wonder how often I, and maybe you too, put certain things into the true, noble, right, pure, lovely, admirable box and some into the not lovely, not right, not pure, not admirable box when actually it is a judgement call. Yes not all things are pure, true, noble, right, lovely admirable, but actually the paid work I do is all those things but it can be seen as a chore. And going off for a walk, getting sun-dried sheets, having no agenda, etc because they are more enjoyable can fit the Phil 4:8 criteria.

I am not saying we go all pollyannaish and think everything is awesome and I do think we need to stop following a lot of the things on the media, but I do think we need to start looking at the lovely within our ordinary lives, within our work lives, within our relationships, within our hard slog of things.

For me the first full paragraph is a list of things that help to settle me and ground me. For me that’s what makes them perfect. But my QEC counselor says that in every situation we should keep our Autonomic Nervous System in balance and regulation – which involves remembering to do that, breathing slowly, of being grateful and forgiving ourselves and others. This doesn’t make the difficult situation at work go away but it does ground us to be able to deal with it effectively and calmly.

So even though I have loved the last few days with their fill of perfect things in them tomorrow when I do my shift at work I will try to look to those things that are good, true, noble, pure, admirable, noble, etc and keep my ANS in balance and regulation, remember that I am human, that those I work with and live with are human and forgive. Maybe then my perfect day will be every day of the week no matter what goes on in it???