Improve the Moment

 This morning I was thinking of my stress response and how to improve the next moment as a way to exercise faith.  It was only a week ago, that I felt cold/flu symptoms and was reminded I should test for Covid.  I  tested positive and spent the majority of the week quarantined, trying to recover.  On Monday, my boss called saying that he was not only Covid positive, but that administration had decided to discontinue our day treatment program and suggested I contact HR within the larger corporation for possible opportunities utilizing TR (Therapeutic Recreation).  I really wasn't in the state of mind/body to receive or respond to this news, nevertheless, the door was closing and it was time to find another open door.  

Though not feeling well, I took slow, deliberate, micro-steps to totally accept what is and do my best to "improve the next moment" and "make decisions aligned with my values".  These are concepts I have been studying with DBT continuing education credits online.  I found my PHD doppelganger on the internet with whom I seriously would like to do a Vulcan "mind meld" with. She even has a daughter named "Hailey!" (https://www.docsnipes.com).  Anyway, practicing radical acceptance and improving the next moment are crucial distress tolerance skills I not only want to teach others, but first practice myself.  And I just so happen to have plenty of stressful events giving me a perfect opportunity to practice them.  

Not once this week did I feel panicked or even emotionally triggered, especially since I had received similar news 16 months ago.  With the assurance that "everything will be okay" I spent my time reaching out to HR, talking with other clinical directors, completing additional counseling CEU's, learning and creating music in "Bandlab" for future use with students,  updating my resume and casually looking on "Indeed."  I was magnetically drawn to a position that I originally passed on 16 months ago, but now felt prompted to take action and apply for it.  I texted the clinical director and asked if I might be considered.  She texted back "Absolutely!"  I set up an interview for next week and will most likely be offered the job. 

My current employer wanted me to show up for work on Friday, so I masked up, stayed away from the students and started to gather my belongings from the day program.  During my first year with this company, I have worked 3 separate programs providing recreational therapy services.  First a clinical boarding school, then residential treatment, then a IOP day program. In many ways, it has been an incredible opportunity for learning, growth, innovation, flexibility, creative expression and clarity.   I have no regrets.  I am sad that our day program is closing.  I invested heavily and feel a keen sense of loss. I had great hopes that will never come to fruition.  I know I am not the only one who is experiencing loss due to this financial failure.  Yet hope is a real thing.

Hope shines brightly.  Better days are ahead.  I have one last week with my current students.  During this time we will focus on distress tolerance and the IMPROVE acronym combined with various recreational tasks. I will encourage them to make slow, deliberate, steps to totally "accept what is" and do their best to "improve the next moment" and "make decisions aligned with their values".  It will become a template for my future work.   

I feel peace.  I feel directed, even led to which next steps to take for well-being.  My object of faith is not in some super-wow youtube psych counselor or latest greatest evidenced based mental health practice but rooted in Jesus Christ.  Faith in Jesus Christ, Hope in Jesus Christ energize and infuse me with acceptance of what is and power to move on.  He supercharges my meager capacity to IMPROVE the next moment.  

It Will Be Okay

 Last weekend my mother was having difficulties with her vision and went to the hospital.   She learned she had a "mini" stroke with some clots, A-fib heart irregularities, and some type of aneurism.  The neurologist considering everything that was going on in her body, said to her, "You are one lucky woman!  My mom felt like the he didn't really sympathize with her vision complaints compared to what losses she could have been experiencing.  Yet for my mom, working vision is crucial to her daily schedule.  She loves to read, watch TV, browse Facebook posts and drive herself places-all requiring a certain degree of visual acuity.  

Generally speaking, my mom has been pretty healthy over the last 85 years.  She has experienced some issues requiring medical attention including surgeries, brief hospitalization, chronic conditions requiring ongoing medication, but on the whole, she has been high functioning across most domains.  I know she will not live forever, but I'm always hopeful she will be like her aunties that lived into their late 90's.  I know aging is a series of managing losses. It's not pretty whether we're watching love ones age or going through the process ourselves.  

When I got the call that my mother was in the hospital, I couldn't help but wonder if she would be okay.  Or is this when she dies?  What abilities might she lose? What will she be able to do?  What will her quality of life be like for the next 10 years?  Will she have 10 more years?  Questions like these not only go through my mind, but they most assuredly go through my mom's mind as well.

Why else would she comment to the nurses something like, "It's alright if I die because I have 3 children with active temple recommends." She answered questions to curious nurses who asked what a "temple" and "recommend were.  She invited them to be in her hospital room when she received a priesthood blessing from her son.  She wanted them to see.  She has made a covenant to be a witness of Jesus Christ at all times and in all places.   She wanted to share her faith, that truly, "Everything will be okay."   

When talking with her over the phone, she shared the above experience and casually mentioned that she called her team-primary teacher to let her know that she would not be there that Sunday for the lesson for the children.  She's that dutiful.  She's that committed. 

As our phone conversation continued, I thought about my mom's faithfulness and testimony of the Savior and made a connection to my recent studies from the week's "Come Follow Me" lesson.  I thought of Job's faithfulness through all his adversity and his testimony that "I know my Redeemer liveth."  I was overwrought with emotion and could not speak.  I wanted to but was physically choked up.  I had to say what I was thinking and feeling to my mother in the hospital.  Finally I sputtered and sobbed the words out, telling her how very grateful I am to have her life long example of faith in Jesus Christ. Not only through words, not only through church service, but also through her daily choices in everyday living-the good, the bad, and everything in between-my mom believes in Jesus Christ and wants to follow him.  This I know.

Though I was emotional, it was a sweet spiritual experience that helped me feel the spirit and reinforce my fasting that day in her behalf.  Oh how I love my mom.  Oh how I appreciate her example of faith.  And with this faith, I too can move forward into this new stage of life and our mother-daughter relationship. 

She is back from the hospital now recovering and doing her best to do what she can to access her daily routine. She has a lists of appointments as well as new medications.  She will make necessary adjustments.  Life will continue to change. She will not be able to come to Utah to visit rather it is my turn to come to California more often.   It will be different for sure, but taking a page from my mother's playbook, "It will be okay."

Universal Knowledge

 I'm not a think on my feet kind of gal.  Whenever someone asks me a question, I freeze and all the information I have previously learned becomes jumbled and irretrievable.  This is not good practice.  Especially when the information is of vital importance and the person asking the question is one of the most important people in my life.  My son was using a new system of note taking that looks like a complex star chart.  Like all of us, he was trying to make sense of his place in the universe, especially in the grand scale of time and historic existence.  If we can't wrap our head around the answers, the information can wrap up our head in a big jumbled mess of confusion.   

There surely is a universe of information-like stars in the sky, like grains of sand, like the atoms swirling around, like digital data in cyberspace.   It's overwhelming when trying to make sense of it all or try to organize it in a helpful way.  Or to know where to start?  What knowledge really matters and when does it matter?  Why do I exist?  Who am I? What's my purpose?  How does it all fit together?  Does it fit together?  Is it chaos?  What is "it" anyway?  Is it possible to think too much?  

Simplicity helps.  I know who I am, where I came from, why I'm here, where I'm going.  I learned the  standard gospel answers years ago contained in The Plan of Salvation, Plan of Happiness, Plan of Redemption,   Rather than rehearse all the knowledge I've been acquiring over the past 59 years, I want to simply it even further.  In all the learning, learn wisdom.  Supposedly, my gray hairs suggest that through the years I've acquired some deal of wisdom.  At least that's my goal as in Proverbs 4:7 reads "Wisdom is the principal thing...and with all they getting get understanding".  The more I understand about the plan, the more I see how everything fits, every piece of knowledge comes together in a great, organized whole, complete, creation or world.  God's construct is big enough and expansive enough for all truth.  I don't have to leave anything behind, cover my eyes, or pretend it doesn't exist.  Faith and questions can exist together.  I do not have to choose between science and religion.  

I know things.  I really do.  But of all the things I know, the most important is not what I know but WHO I'm trying to know-my Father.  Even though I'm about as significant as cosmic dust particle, My Father in Heaven KNOWS me and cares about me.  I share the lyrics from my very first solo I sang as a young child  "I know my Father lives and loves me too.  The spirit whispers this to me and tells me it is true.  He sent me here to earth, by faith to live His plan.  The spirit whispers this to me and tells me that I can." 

 My greatest quest for knowledge is not only know He lives and know His plan but to know my Father who already knows me!   That will only be accomplished through daily efforts to connect with him.  I want to connect to his power.  He makes sense of the chaos and inner turmoil.  Little by little, I'm developing my relationship with Him.  Each time I feel His spirit in my heart and head telling me something is true or what I should do in the next moment, I know him better than before. That's my priority.  He's my priority.  And if I know Him, he'll teach me everything that is most important for me to know in order to sift through the sea of knowledge to find the treasured truths.  

Where to start digging?  I say, the "Come Follow Me" app.  Each morning I like to click on the icon picture of Jesus and see what my "Come Follow Me" reading assignment is for the week.  It has been the BEST thing I relied on during Covid to feel connection.  It's the best thing to connect with him now.  Followed with prayer and listening to the spirit, that's about as simple as I can make it as a way to navigate through the sea of knowledge.  It makes sense.  It's simple.  It's my easiest, most simple way to approach universal knowledge and not get sucked into a black hole.