5 Minutes Of My Day - Hospitality of Family

What a wonderful surprise to arrive at our grandson's home for our weekly Tuesday supper to find he had made me four ink drawings to use in my journals.  Take a close look at the pages he has used chapter titles as the inspiration for the drawing.  

"I didn't know we were making memories, I just thought we were having fun" 

~ A.A. Milne "Winnie the Pooh

2017 Visiting with our son as he paints our house.

2016 Just relaxing at home

2015 Date night is a movie tonight

2014 Ice cream and a beautiful sunset with my beloved

Grandma Snyder

©twosnydergirls 2018

Life As A Chapter Book

The metaphor of a chapter book works well in describing a human life.  In talk therapy we describe the struggles that a person is going through as a chapter in that book not the whole story and this is a book you get to change the cover of as often as you like.

And so as we come and go from a person’s life, we need to be mindful we know only the chapter that our paths cross in.

Years ago in a senior’s home, there was the nicest elderly man, he always had a pleasant word for staff, knew our children's names and was helpful towards the people he shared the home with.  

So why was it his only son never came to visit?  Holidays would come and go money to purchase gifts for his father arrived but no visits.

Finally, it become too much and the director of the home called the son and encouraged him to visit his father.  With the application of guilt, the son relented and the day of the visit arrived. 

He walked through the front door of the home and went directly to the office of the directer where he announced that this would not go well.  

What did he mean not go well, staff smiled and told him how pleased his father would be do know he was a grandfather, how his father always paid special attention to the children who visited, not go well his father would be thrilled.

We only knew this elderly man through one chapter in his life book and with horror moments later profanity, and curses erupted from his room as he screamed after the retreating bodies of his son, daughter-in-law and grandchild.  

As the son passed the nurses he said "My father is a bigot and has never accepted my wife or my son, it is my father’s wish never to see us again not ours!"

This quote took on new meaning to the entire staff that day.

Be mindful always that each of us has many chapters in our life book, some we are proud of, others we are not and some we strive to conceal.

Grandma Snyder

©2013-2016 twosnydergirls 

Compassion

Over the past number of days’ we have struggled with compassion.

Intellectualizing how to show compassion to family that is estranged.

Remaining compassionate in the face of resentment over demands for our time.

Concerned when fear has pushed compassion out of the way.

Be mindful of how you let your emotions control your ability to influence both yourself and those around you.

Fear and resentment isolate and turn us in on ourselves

Compassion and love keep us empowered and looking outward.

Grandma Snyder

©2013-2016 twosnydergirls

Play Is Research

I just could not grasp my graduate level research statistical course. 

Hired a tutor, that did not work.

Read all the Dummy books on the topic I could get my hands on, that did not work!

Attended small group learning labs, that did not work!

Feeling all was lost I wrote to the professor with my intent to withdraw, and his response came out of left field. 

Stop trying to learn it, staring playing with it you will find your way.

  He included with this advice some YouTube site that did exactly that with the end result was I aced the course.

Learning is a serious business and so is playing, Lucas above is learning about texture, space, permanency, what tastes good and what does not, Emily about wind direction, elasticity of soap and water, how to keep a baby happy and they are both were learning so much more that we can see on the surface.

Be mindful both with yourself and with the children in your life that play is more than just fooling around, and that we need to play with difficult learning topic to understand them fully.

Grandma Snyder

©2013-2016 twosnydergirls 

Parent Gently

Parenting is not about being right. 

It is not about having the right answers. 

It is not about being obeyed.

Parenting is about guiding the young lives we have taken responsibility for.  

Guiding them to participate in the success of the communities they belong to.

Parenting is about providing your children with what they need to feel safe, loved and encouraged to become themselves.

Parent gently.

Parent by giving your time to your children.

Parent humbly.

Parent knowing that your children will be different than you and this is a good thing.

Grandma Snyder

©2013-2016 twosnydergirls

Keep Christmas Simple

When you think back to childhood memories of this holiday season what memories bring a smile of joy to you?  

For most of us the memory is of something simple, something that did not cost a great deal of money and that did involve an act of kindness or love.

• My younger sister poor in her first year of college knitting each of us snowmen to go on our Christmas trees.
• Buttered popcorn and hot chocolate while grandpa tells us stories.
• Watching my father and Uncle Clifford lay on their backs under the Christmas tree trying with their tongues to pull chocolate ornaments off the tree because you could not touch them until after Christmas dinner.
• Being given my Grandmother’s current Christmas bread recipe and hearing stories about this wonderful woman who died the year I was born.

Be mindful this season of the childhood memories that have carried you through the years, and create opportunities for your family to have similar memories.

Keep Christmas simple, with time for laughing, sharing stories, being present with each other with no expectations other than to spend the holidays together.

Grandma Snyder

©2013-2015 twosnydergirls

Be Present This Holiday Season

The consumer engine is all steamed up and ready to pull out of the station with all of us aboard, on what is euphemistically known as the 
"Holidays"

If your Christmas planning is anything like ours, there is very little about it that resembles a holiday.  The reality is that so much time is spent planning, deciding what would be that perfect gift, who to invite, what to wear, which party to go to and so on.  That by the time New Year's Day gets here we have a hard time remembering what we did and more importantly how we really felt at the time.

As you enter the 2015 Holiday season, be mindful of how much time is spent in looking forward/ how much time you are trading away for the present now that you are living.

Don't plan, shop and cook away the 2015 Christmas season, unless in doing so you can stay present with yourself and those around you!

Be alive and present this Christmas season.

Grandma Snyder

©2013-2015 twosnydergirls

Do What You Can

Today at work in reviewing a power point slide deck I had a 'light bulb' moment as my granddaughters like to say.  

There was a business quote that talked about needing to ensure that people have the resources available to achieve the expected outcome.  

The 'light bulb' moment came when I applied this same axiom to my own life.

As we approach Christmas the demands on my time to sew this, knit that, crochet this pattern, make Christmas cookies for, volunteer for this event, and the list goes on.  

I need to mindful of the resources I have to offer myself so that I can achieve balance and love in my file.

I am not alone this phenomenon, the need or desire to be all things to all people.  

With the outcome being that in the end you are left feeling unhappy, tired or unappreciated.

Theodore Roosevelt's advice is very timely 

"Do what you can, with what you have, where you are." 

He is addressing just this issue personal resource management.

Be Mindful this week of what your personal resources are and do not over tax yourself.

Grandma Snyder

©2013-2015 twosnydergirls

Frustration

Frustration!

You can substitute; prevention, hindrance, blocking, foiling, defeat, obstruction, thwarting for the word frustration and those are only the words that Microsoft Word provided.

 And the opposite of frustration is success.

Today was a very frustrating day, it was a day that depleted personal energy and gave very little in return.

Today was a day where old behaviours prevented success, 

where lack of awareness hindered success, 

success was blocked by not being mindful of repeated patterns, 

where habitual responses foiled success ….

In reflection it was a day where old behaviours and strategies were repeatedly applied to new situations, each time with the expectation that success would be achieved and where frustrated failure resulted.

Einstein would say a day spent in the pursuit of insanity and by the end of the day that is what it felt like.

Did other people cause this frustration? 

To say yes would be give personal power and choice away. 

No people cause their own frustration and there in lays the path to success.

Taking ownership of being frustrated, be mindful of your expectations, repeated patterns of behaviours and leave insanity behind.

Grandma Snyder

©2013-2015 twosnydergirls

Today Is All that Matters

This morning we woke to a perfect fall morning, clear blue sky, freshening breeze and a day of opportunity ahead of us. 

Yesterday, its disappointments, joys and struggles now allocated to history, to memory and beyond our ability to change. 

Tomorrow out of reach present only on a calendar full of what might be.

In this perfect morning we are born a new to the potential and choices we make.    We live in today and this is the time that matters.

Be mindful of how much of your now, you spend not living but worrying about either the future or the past, then stop and claim your life,

 claim your today and live!

Grandma Snyder

©2013-2015 twosnydergirls

This Too Shall Pass

 “The way to live in the present is to remember that ‘This too shall pass.’ When you experience joy, remembering that ‘This too shall pass’ helps you savor the here and now. When you experience pain and sorrow, remembering that ‘This too shall pass’ reminds you that grief, like joy, is only temporary.” ~Joey Green

 It’s the middle of the night and you wake with a sharp intake of breath, you cannot remember what woke you up however going back to sleep will be next to impossible as you perseverate on the events of the previous day.

It is at times like these that turning away from unhelpful, unhealthy and intrusive thoughts to get yourself back to sleep is important and over the years I have returned to sleep with the repeated phrase ‘this too will pass’.

Being mindful of  the life you have lived and the things you have over come provides you with the buffers you need to weather unpleasant times.

Joey Green is also correct that being mindful that times of joy and pleasure will pass helps to focus the mind to remain present in your joy.  Again here we can look to the children around us to understand what being present in joy looks like.

Grandma Snyder

©2013-2015 twosnydergirls

Perception As Limits

Grandma I can't do that!

You can fill in that with almost anything, that our youngest grandchild has not experienced or tried - she is not a risk taker and her perceptions is that she will fail and failure is bad.

It is her perception not her ability that is limiting.

She is not alone, many of us perceive our abilities to be less than they actually are, that failure is bad and so we limit our options accordingly. 

Our perception needs to be cleansed, we need to open the door of our perception to the infinite possibilities that each day presents us with.

As parents and grandparents encourage your (grand)children to try new things and wherever possible frame failure within a positive growth context.  

And model this by opening yourself up to new experiences and finding humour and hope within failure.

Be mindful that perception is not a truth it is a thought construct made from what the past has presented you with. 

Keep your perceptions of yourself and others open to the influence of the infinite set of possibilities your future holds.

Grandma Snyder

©2013-2015 twosnydergirls 

Create Space Through Silence

A silence into which a parent listens is a powerful form of communication

and one that we struggle to implement.

Into an open, safe and tolerant silence children will open up allowing the adults who wait a window into their lives.

Instead we ask questions that we know that answer to.

We speak over them and they dismiss the words that they do give us.

And we are surprised that by the time they are teenagers they have stopped talking to us.

Be mindful in your parenting of the amount of time you spend talking and the silences that you create for your children to talk to you in.

Grandma Snyder

©2013-2015 twosnydergirls

Be Kind

In order for you to be kind to others you must start by being kind to yourself.

How many times in a day are you self-critical?

Pay attention to this and when you find yourself being unkind to yourself, stop and apologize to yourself.

This in itself is a kindness and then be kind to yourself.

Pay attention to how your children and grandchild treat themselves 

and when they make unkind comments, 

gently redirect them and teach them about self directed kindness,

so they in turn can be kind to others.

Grandma Snyder

©2013-2015 twosnydergirls

Thoughts are just thoughts

You wake up in the middle of the night and your mind is in overdrive!

And you run the same terrible thoughts through your mind over and over again.

Morning comes and the thoughts that kept you up most of the night seem absurd.

Thoughts are just thoughts!

Be mindful that we have control over our thoughts and take charge when thoughts are unhelpful, or produce worry.

Now when waking in the middle of the night with a worrying thought I literally tell my mind to go to sleep and stop worrying over nothing because all will be well in the morning.

Grandma Snyder

©2013-2015 twosnydergirls

Don't Miss Out On Your Life

We have had our Great Nephew Lucas visiting for the past few days.  Everything he does is intense.  

When he eats it is all about the food, how it feels in his mouth, how it tastes and yes how it feels.  

When he is watching you he is taking in all of you, memorizing your face, your voice.

When he plays he is undistractible.  

He is getting the most out of life!

We saw the same type of focused involvement watching our granddaughters play soccer.   

When we asked about the game they recited in detail their experience of the game.  

They knew what air tasted like, the condition of the grass under their feet and where their team members were at any time.  

They had been alive in that game.

How often driving home from work are you caught off guard by where you are in the trip?  

Or sitting in a meeting or waiting in a lobby do you come to the startling realization you cannot remember the past few minutes. 

You have missed out on part of your life!

Be mindful of the moments you are living and learn from the children around you to be present in everything you do.

Grandma Snyder

©2013-2015 twosnydergirls

A Poison Called Anger

I hate her!

She is always ruining my fun!

I wish she was not my sister!

Angry words from a very angry and emotionally distraught big sister, while her little sister the focus of her anger plays happily away with her kite.  

Anger in a ten year old is all about raw emotion as she is just learning to temper her anger with rational thought.  All we could do was stay with her and acknowledge what she was feeling and help her breath her way to the other side.  

Once there with just a little help she rationally looked at her situation and picked another spot to fly her kite.

How often have we become consumed with raw emotion, overcome with anger?

Has it ever resulted in a positive outcome while it remained raw?

Breathing through the initial emotional reaction is the only thing we can do and once we  have control our rational brain can take positive action, because

"Holding on to anger is like drinking poison and expecting the other person to die" ~ Buddha

Be mindful when children around you get angry to be present with them do not try to talk them away from the edge- to be rational, be there to ensure they land softly and do not take anyone else with them. 

And be mindful that in being angry you are only hurting yourself.

Grandma Snyder

©2013 – 2015 twosydergirls

Mindfulness

Young children understands this! 

Look on the face of a child at play,

the world is theirs and they are alive in that moment.

Now as I enter my senior years,

Again I can get lost in joy and in those moment

I want for nothing,

Take a moment to find joy right now 

and in that moment you will have all that you need.

Grandma Snyder

©2013-2015twosnydergirls

Sunday Dinner and a Hayride

As a child Sunday afternoons were either spent having a family over for dinner or being invited over to another church member’s home.  If we were lucky they would have children around our age and a wonderful afternoon would be spent playing.  This custom has for the most part disappeared in favour of going out for dinner at restaurants which are now open Sundays.

 Today we revisited this old custom when we were invited to break bread with members of our church.  The meal was wonderful and for Ruth, Emily and Haley the real treat happened after dinner when they were invited on a private hayride.

As a child what were your families Sunday afternoon traditions?

When was the last time you went out of a hayride or wondered around in the woods on a Sunday afternoon?

Grandma Snyder

©2013-2015 twosnydergirls

The Simplest Toy

Grandpa read me a story.

Grandma can we bake cookies?

Daddy let's go swimming!

Mommy help me paint my picture.

From the moment of their birth they  make known their dependence on us and

as they grow we can only pray that they will stand with us when we become dependent on them.

What our (grand)children will remember as adults is not the expensive toys you bought them for Christmas it will be the time you spent with them.

How you played with them.

How you formed a family with them.

And it will be their memories of us as we played, laughed and gave of our time that will inform their decisions to visit us when we need them.

Grandma Snyder

©2013-2015 twosnydergirls