Perspective. When it comes right down to it, everything we do in life centers around perspective. It’s really phenomenal how our point of view can change, too.
The little things we so often simply take for granted can, with one bizarre turn of fate, become major issues. Things like walking, sleeping comfortably, being able to do the things we used to complain about (like weeding gardens and cleaning the house)…. It doesn’t take much to make one do a double-take and realize how important the seemingly unimportant details can really be.
Like being able to get up off the floor.
I did it today. Most people would say, “So what, I do that all the time”, but this is something I haven’t been able to do for over a year, not without help. I can recall a fall earlier this year: I went down hard in the kitchen and it took my husband and my son to get me back into the wheel chair. I was so weak, and still in such pain from the healing leg, that there was no way I’d have gotten myself up.
But today, I finally swallowed a silly fear, got down on the floor and did some Feldenkrais exercises, and got up again. All by myself. Well, I had to scootch my chubby butt over to the side of the bed and use the frame for leverage, but I still did it by myself.
It’s amazing the opportunities that have now opened up for me. I can do more of the Feldenkrais therapy that has, in past situations, been such a help to the healing of my body. I can even start morphing that into, and incorporating, some of the yoga that I’ve thought for some time would be helpful. I can start to gradually and gently strengthen my poor abused muscles so that more and more possibilities of movement and freedom (like being able to walk without worrying about toppling over!) can open up.
I’m so incredibly thankful! Yes, it’s a tiny thing, something most human beings do every single day of their lives without even thinking about it. For me, however, it’s a majorly wonderful big deal!
I got up off the floor!
If you’ve seen or read “The Secret”, or if you’ve followed my post here about Velma Gallant’s Joy Journal, you’ll know that I see gratitude as something much more than a word. I can remember being asked, as a child, “What’s the magic word?” and the answer the adults were expecting was, of course, “Please”. “Please”, certainly, is important to one’s life, but the real “magic word” for me is “Thank You”. Well, I guess that’s two words, isn’t it? But you get the picture.
Long ago, someone said to me that if you’re not grateful for what you have, how can you possibly have room to receive more? There are certain phrases and tidbits of wisdom we pick up as we wander through life that stick with us, and that is certainly one of my favorites. I’ve pulled it out of my memory attic many times, to remind me that being grateful is not just a nice thing to do, it’s an act of magic that can bring better things into my life, and the lives of those I love.
In “The Secret”, in the segment on gratitude, they discuss the gratitude stone. I still have mine, a little piece of pale periwinkle agate that sits on my desk. I don’t really use it all that often, as I have other tricks (such as Joy Journals and Morning Pages) that remind me to start my day with gratitude. Some days, there are little bits of thanks that help me to get a positive focus on the day. Other days there are monster-sized ones.
Tomorrow, what would probably seem like a little bit to others is a monster Thank You for me.
I know that, by focusing on today’s accomplishments with thanks, I’ll take even bigger and better strides forward in the future. I’ll walk more, walk stronger, then dance, then run. I’ll take strolls down the lane with my dog, and visit the rescue farm more often. I’ll get back to my horse-pal Zeus sooner or later, too, and continue the games we started together several years ago. I can hold all these things in my mind today with more confidence, and a greater sense of being thankful for what is true, even if it hasn’t manifested quite yet.
And all because I got up off the floor.
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