Category: Thankful

Day 1,989 – Thankful for Sharing Many Moments of Joy, Love, and Beauty

What a fulfilling day on so many levels. Seemingly around each corner was an opportunity to grow, to love, to support, to help, or to feel incredible sense of purpose. Not everything went as planned, but even the things that didn’t happen as expected presented opportunities for beauty, love, and joy.

When I stopped at Caribou Coffee to pick up some drinks for my team I was presented a new opportunity. The cashier was hearing impaired and smiled and pointed to the whiteboard. This was a first for me and it was an experience I’ll never forget.

Without spoken language we communicated the order for six drinks with various intricacies. We laughed together at various times, helped each other through hand motions, and shared so many smiles together as we proceeded through the transaction. At one point when she was trying to help me answer a question she resorted to wrapping her arms around herself and acting like she was shivering. “Iced!” I proclaimed with glee and a giggle. It was amongst the most pleasant and joyful customer experiences I’ve ever had.

As a writer and speaker I’m a huge fan of words to communicate. In many ways they are the tool of my trade, my most trusted implement. With the inability to use them it was interesting to see how quickly we were able to adapt and still make a connection. At a deep and primal level it helped me see that we are all truly wired for love.

There were so many other moments which touched my soul. Receiving coaching from teammates, listening to friends, seeing how past mistakes were translated into learning which was passed on as wisdom. Seeing how different we all are as people and yet how perfectly similar we all are. Recognizing our shared anxieties and helping each other through them. Realizing a profound sense of purpose in both helping others and in receiving help. Sharing in our humanity, sharing love and joy even in, and especially in, moments of pain and frustration.

If today were my last day upon the earth I would go into the next completely peaceful and knowing I’d spent much of my last day of this life witnessing the beauty, joy, and love we are all capable of.

Thanks!!!

Day 1,988 – Thankful for Another Gift Within a Gift at Yoga

Another Monday night yoga practice, another moment of profound insight nestled in the deeply calm state of presence.

The two biggest reasons I love hitting yoga are the physical workout as well as the focused presence. Put those two components together and I’m always grateful for taking the time to get all namaste.

While those two are the headliners there’s an awesome added bonus which sometimes appears when my mind is deep in that state of serenity. Occasionally an idea will hatch during the practice. A little nugget of wisdom worth more than one hundred times it’s weight in gold. A magical moment of clarity and understanding which help me understand some better than before.

Tonight that gem was the realization that when learning and attempting something I’ve never done there is no stress about anything else in life. The act of focused and intentional learning create a state in which there is no concern or anxiety about anything outside the task. If I’ve truly set my soul properly there is also no anxiety in what I am learning, there is only the bliss of play. How wild is that? When I find myself stressing or anxious I need only play a little game with myself – what can I learn from this – to transition from anxiety into calm.

That bonus lesson buried within a yoga practice was yet another example of how much can be gained by pausing the busyness of life and intentionally choosing stillness and presence. As Becky pointed out on Friday, the world would be a much better place if everyone paused for a moment to practice yoga. The entire world would quickly become all namaste.

Thanks!!!

Day 1,988 – Thankful for Another Gift Within a Gift at Yoga

Another Monday night yoga practice, another moment of profound insight nestled in the deeply calm state of presence.

The two biggest reasons I love hitting yoga are the physical workout as well as the focused presence. Put those two components together and I’m always grateful for taking the time to get all namaste.

While those two are the headliners there’s an awesome added bonus which sometimes appears when my mind is deep in that state of serenity. Occasionally an idea will hatch during the practice. A little nugget of wisdom worth more than one hundred times it’s weight in gold. A magical moment of clarity and understanding which help me understand some better than before.

Tonight that gem was the realization that when learning and attempting something I’ve never done there is no stress about anything else in life. The act of focused and intentional learning create a state in which there is no concern or anxiety about anything outside the task. If I’ve truly set my soul properly there is also no anxiety in what I am learning, there is only the bliss of play. How wild is that? When I find myself stressing or anxious I need only play a little game with myself – what can I learn from this – to transition from anxiety into calm.

That bonus lesson buried within a yoga practice was yet another example of how much can be gained by pausing the busyness of life and intentionally choosing stillness and presence. As Becky pointed out on Friday, the world would be a much better place if everyone paused for a moment to practice yoga. The entire world would quickly become all namaste.

Thanks!!!

Day 1,986 – Thankful for an Awesome Phone Call with Mom & Changing After 17 years

This afternoon I had an awesome phone call with Mom. Our lives are all pretty busy and sometimes it seems to be a little difficult finding times when we’re both available to connect for long periods of time. As such, we often end up having calls which are shorter than either of us would like them to be.

Today everything lined up just right and we took advantage of the perfect timing. We talked about so many topics, shared great memories, talked about new projects, and so on. I greatly appreciate those opportunities to connect with Mom and have that focused conversational time. The boys and I are heading up next Saturday so we’ll have a little bonus time then too!

While cleaning the floor in our bedroom I had a crazy idea. Ever since we moved into this house we’ve had the bed in exactly the same place. The bed has changed but the location has been constant. Seeing as I already had the bed moved across the room for a good deep clean of the floor I thought I’d see how it looked in a different place. By the time I got everything situated it looked way better than I’d expected. I was pretty stoked when Becky saw the move and smiled.

Yes, I’ve reached the point when excitement can be found in something as simple as moving furniture. I’m not sure what that says about me, but I really don’t care. Sometimes change can actually be fun… though we’ll see if I feel the same way after I wake up in the middle of the night and see if I remember that I moved it around!

Thanks!!!

Day 1,985 – Thankful for a Workweek Bookended by Yoga

After getting home from being out of town for work for a handful of days I took Monday off. After our morning run early Monday morning (Becky was working so we stayed with our normal time) I took a little nap and then hit yoga at Root Down for the 8:30am yoga class. After getting home tonight Becky and I loaded up and headed out to Root Down for another awesome yoga session.

Yoga, work, yoga, weekend. Kind of has a nice ring to it! I might have to do this again sometime 🙂

Yoga as a tool to center myself before getting back into the swing of things was exactly what my brain needed. My mind was racing with ideas from the days of training as well as with everything I needed to do in order to catch up. By bending, twisting, sweating, and breathing I was able to calm my neurons down and re-focus on the present moment. A profound state fo chill to create space for me to get to work.

Throughout the week I flew at a crazy pace. The days blew past me quickly as they were each filled with very necessary activity from start to stop. Even with Monday off I cruised well beyond 40 hours worked. My mind was still racing as I questioned whether or not I could wrap up in time for yoga. I knew my brain needed it so I wrapped up with creating my task list which will be waiting for me on Monday early morning when I get back to the office.

Yoga as a path to chilling my crazy busy thought processes was the perfect switch to flip to move me from work mode to weekend mode. It pushed me to wrap up and find the end of the page, put the bookmark in, and then move on to some lighter reading. By bending, twisting, sweating, and breathing I was able to relax, reduce the stress, and focus on moving forward on what I want to accomplish at home. It was exactly what I needed.

Ahh… I’m now showered up, full from an awesome dinner, and wrapping up my day with my blog.

Yoga, work, yoga, weekend. Namaste.

Thanks!!!

Day 1,984 – Thankful for a Gratitude Filled Day with Think Days, Excellent Teams, Honoring Dad’s Legacy, a Book Causing a Visceral Response, Gavin’s Growth, and Uncle Matt on TV

Wowza, where do I even begin today? The day has been packed with so many gratitude filled moments, I’m definitely going with a conglomerate of appreciation. Even in this fashion my biggest hope is that I don’t miss one of the key moments.

My Winona team and I had our monthly Think Day and it was one I’ll remember forever. We helped each other work out some very important things and bond more as a team. Seeing the growth everyone has had over the past handful of months was incredible. There is a magic to teams in which you feel 100% comfortable being who you are, sharing emotions as you would with family, and supporting each other throughout all of life. I’m blessed to be a member of a couple of those teams.

In a moment of reflection I found an awesome way to honor Dad and help continue his legacy. Taking action on it this week has been more rewarding than I could have ever dreamt. More details to follow on May 26th. 😉

I finished reading 1984 today, fitting seeing as this is blog 1,984. This was the first time I can remember having a profoundly visceral wave of nausea strictly from reading. As I said a couple of nights ago, if you haven’t read it for a while you may want to pick it up. Mindblowingly impactful on numerous levels.

Gavin’s parent teacher conference this evening was incredible. During the last one he found a couple of things to work on and he totally crushed them over the past quarter. Hearing the glowing reviews of his teachers was music for my soul. Gavin’s leadership skills, focus, and growth make me burst with pride. Excellent work bud! Love you dude!

Becky’s brother, Matt, is in the Paralympics in Beijing for curling and I wanted to make sure we have everything set up to watch his matches live on TV. In doing so we happened to stumble across the preview pic for the match… and it was Matt!!! How wild is that??? Seeing someone we know and love on our TV was crazy! Super proud of him and so pumped to see how he and his team do.

Thanks!!!

Day 1,982 – Thankful for Re-Reading a Classic – 1984 by George Orwell

For some reason the book 1984 has been calling out to me over the past couple of months. Once in a while it may be a news story which catches my eye and ignites a desire to pick it up. As I’ve read other books there may be a direct reference or even just a subtle hint which gets me thinking about the classic again. After putting it off I’ve picked it back up and have been rewarded with a wildly rich experience.

As I’ve mentioned before, I love the quote about no person ever stepping into the same river twice. This maxim certainly holds for reading books. I’m a very different person than the one who’s read this book twice before and have the benefit of more years of life experience to view it from.

The story may have been written long ago but the struggles within it are almost as if Orwell were writing this story with the benefit of a crystal ball. Profoundly thought provoking, it’s got my brain going in so many directions at once.

If you haven’t read this book before or it has been more than a decade I’d recommend giving it a read. Very timely and guaranteed to cause discomfort in a beneficial way.

Time to get off my telescreen and get back to reading 😉

Thanks!!!

Day 1,981 – Thankful for a Subtle Shift Making All the Difference & Realizing Becky Was Right Yet Again

Rather than jumping right back into work after our conference I opted to take the day off. Full disclosure, Gavin has already given me a little bit of a hard time as I was working when he got home from school. It wasn’t a complete day off from work, but it was exactly what I needed.

Several years ago I wrote about appreciating Becky’s advice to cut a vacation a day short to have a one day cushion in between vacation and real life. I was originally not in favor of this approach but I quickly realized how right she was after trying it the first time. Have a day to bounce back really helps me get back into the right headspace before going back to work.

This time I was flying back from a wildly successful and profoundly thought provoking training trip for work. My mind was going a million miles per hour throughout the entire event and into this morning until I paused for yoga. Yoga was pretty much the reset button I needed to start snapping back into real life mode. After the excellent workout I jumped into productive mode and knocked out the larger than expected list of things I wanted to get done. Much of this was non-work related stuff I’d put off for a while. Throughout the morning I was able to get my laundry done, write out a few checks, figure out a plan for an upcoming soccer tournament, pull some tax information together, get supper prepped, complete my Advance Health Directive (which I’d been meaning to do for almost five years), clean up everything I need to have ready for work, and schedule an excursion for our Iceland trip. By the time Becky got home and was ready to take the girls for a walk I’d also had enough time to quickly sift through some email, prep information for tomorrow, and finish a couple of work related tasks. It was quite the productive day!

Had I not followed Becky’s advice I would have rushed back to work today, left everything piled up, and then stressed throughout the week when there wasn’t enough time to complete it all. I would have been a mess all week and by the time the weekend hit I’d have been ready to scream or cry or both. Instead I’m feeling calm, rested, and ready for tomorrow.

Yoga also helped out so much. Nick summed up the entire practice of prepping to go back in a simple instruction while I was flat on my back. We’d just gone through some pretty hard core leg work and I was breathing heavy while heart was pounding as if it were attempting to escape my ribs. Nick told us to tuck our shoulders underneath our backs just a little to open up our airways. I followed his advice and immediately slowed both my breathing and heart rate. One little shift in position made all the difference.

That’s essentially what today was. I made a slight shift, opened up my airways, and that made all the difference.

Thanks!!!

Day 1,980 – Thankful for Shifting Perspectives

On my flight back home today I was fortunate to have a couple of things work out just right.

First off, I got to the Orlando Airport two hours early this morning which was twenty minutes early thanks to my TSA PreCheck. Had I gone through regular security I would have been about an hour late for my flight due to how ridiculously busy the airport was with travelers – and that was at 5:30am!

On my flight to La Crosse I was on the left side of the jet and in the seat right in front of the start of the wing. My vantage point was perfect for watching the world disappear beneath me until it looked like a tiny scale model.

Thanks to the wind direction we flew west until we were almost to the lock and dam in Genoa. We banked to the right and followed the Mississippi River Valley to the north. This is one of my favorite areas nearby in the Driftless, so many beautiful bluffs mixed with wetlands and the river. As we went north we flew near Brownsville, MN, the town we store our boat at in the winter and where we used to keep our boat on the water. As we flew by I was able to trace my typical route from the main road through the town and to Al’s Small Engine and Whitesitt Storage, the home and business location of the best small engine mechanic in this area. Seeing this place I visit several times each year from up in the air was an incredible shift in my normal perspective. The way the undulating hills roll into the valleys was quite the sight.

Looking back I’m kind of kicking myself for not taking a couple of pictures, but then again I am not because I put all of my being into being present in that moment. I was so focused on soaking it all in while in a deep state of child like curiosity and wonder that stopping to snap a quick pic would have most likely ruined the moment. I was where I was supposed to be in that moment and I styled right in it until the wheels touched down.

I’m grateful for the opportunity to see one of my favorite places from a new perspective, can’t wait to drive it again and see it from the “normal” way again with the added perspective from up above.

Thanks!!!