When Grandma Died

When I was born, my Grandmother told my mother she would live to see be graduate. She almost did.

Even though she was really my aunt, I called her Grandma. She basically raised my mother and took care of me as a baby. I was always close to her and never thought it was strange that I had two grandmothers on one side of my family. I didn’t find out the reality of our relation until I was older, but it never made a difference to me.

It was scary for me when she got older. I never thought about life without her in it. I really got nervous when she was moved into a nursing home because she couldn’t live on her own and started forgetting things and people. But there was something about our bond. So special that she never forgot my name or who I was dispite the Alzheimers. So special that each time I left from a visit with her, there was a knowledge that I would see her again. Even with her going back and forth to the hospital, I knew I would see her again. Until my senior year in high school.

Grandma was back in the hospital, not unlike times past. But there was something different. The moment I walked into that hospital room that night in January 1990 it hit me like a ton of bricks. I knew this would be the last time I would see her alive.

She laid there in that bed with her eyes closed. I don’t know what she knew or didn’t know about who was there to see her. But as my mother and step-father stood beside her bed talking to her, I sat in the corner of the room in stunned silence. I hadn’t experienced a sorrow in my life as deep as that. I didn’t want to believe or accept the finality I knew in those moments. This was my special lady.

It wasn’t until the room was clear that I felt as if I could go to her side. I took her hand and cried like I never had before. I don’t know how long I stood there before I could finally speak to her and tell he how much I loved her. And somehow, by the grace of God, when I could let her hand go I was able to let her go. I knew she would be ok. I don’t know how long it was before the tears stopped that night. But once they were dry, I didn’t cry again - until this moment 19 years later as I think back on that night.

While she didn’t physically see me graduate, I know she was there. I know she’s been cheering me on and watching out for me just like she always did. And I still have po-ke-no, Connect Four, I D-clare War, Dueces, afternoons watching “the stories,” telling her to wake up and her telling we she was just resting her eyes - I have those memories and I know that means I will always have her in my heart.

I do miss her still.

Develop High Energy Habits

A friend and I had a conversation about how much time we waste doing things that are not moving us in the direction of our goals. I, for one, am a Facebook Addict. There I said it. I will log-in in the morning and stay connected all day long. I refresh the page to see if any of my friends have said something I just have to read and know and I play the games and send virtual gifts to my friends all day long. Now while I do get work done, I tend to piddle away any down time I have on Facebook. Then later in the day I feel bad because I didn’t accomplish anything with my day. At night and on the weekends it’s television (while being logged into Facebook). I will spend hours watching TV, even when there is nothing on I want to see. I spend relatively little time focused on the things that will help me create the life I desire to have.

Not to say that there is anything wrong with Facebook or watching TV or whatever it is that keeps us from following our path consistently, we all need to take downtime and just relax and enjoy ourselves. But when our lives become overrun with these things and we feel discontented with the progress we are making in our lives and careers, we need to pause and take notice.
These are low energy habits. These things keep us from the high energy, productive and creative lives we long to live. If you follow the lives of highly successful people, most of their time is spent in the pursuit of their goals and less on time and energy draining distractions. These people have not only keyed in on what they want to accomplish in their lives, they are taking the inspired steps to make those things a reality. And that is the main difference between them and the rest of us.

The difference between high energy and low energy activities is how you feel afterwards. When you complete a high energy activity, while you may be tired physically depending on the level of exertion, you feel the joy of having accomplished something. You feel renewed and more alive. The knowledge that you have made another step towards your goals makes you more enthusiastic and you become a beacon of light to those around you. Low energy activities keep you feeling dissatisfied with your life, you become more lethargic and experience boredom. You can become increasingly depressed because your life seems to be at a standstill, you aren’t accomplishing anything worthwhile or making an impact on the community around you.
And what we all long for inside it to make an impact and an imprint on the minds and hearts of those around us. But as we spend countless hours each week engaged in activities that only serve to temporarily entertain us, we miss out on opportunities to burst through the self-imposed ceiling of success we think restrains us.

But I think I have to ask myself: What do I get out of pursuing low energy activities?

We don’t do anything that we don’t get something out of. Even if what we get is a “confirmation” of our own lack of self-worth, self-esteem or sense of deserving. Perhaps we are afraid that our success will put us out of touch with our friends or family. Maybe we believe that there is a limit to how much we can achieve and these activities hold us below that limit. Maybe our preconceived notions about successful people are negative and by not being as successful we think we are somehow better than them. Whatever the underlying motivation, there is something that has us delaying our success instead of tackling it full force. And most of these underlying beliefs are necessary or true to our lives at this point. When we ask this question, we empower ourselves to choose more productive, high energy activities that make us feel so much better about ourselves.

That’s how I came up with this blog. I made a decision that I was going to log off of Facebook and read some articles in Psychology Today Magazine. I finished reading an article and felt so much better about the way I had spent those 15 minutes. While I thought about how good that felt, I knew I needed to write about that good feeling. These words are a product of that introspection. And you know what, I feel even better having written this and can’t wait to see how I will be inspired to spend my time this afternoon.

So I encourage you to log off that website, put down that controller, turn off that TV and start by doing one thing that moves you towards your goal. Like the Lays potato chip slogan, I bet you can’t do just one.

Some tips for engaging more consistently in high energy activities:

1. Have a specific goal (or set of goals) in mind. Know what it is you want to accomplish. Think of what it will look like when the goal is accomplished. To get someplace, you have to know where you are going.
2. Write down your goals and have copies in places where you can look at them frequently. These will be reminders to you of what you want to accomplish. This will help you keep focused.
3. Notice when you are engaged in a low energy activity and choose to get back to achieving your goals. Many of us habitually engage in low energy activities and we start doing them by default, as if on autopilot. SNAP OUT OF IT. Post your goal reminders near the things that have become used for low energy activities; on the computer, TV, game system or refrigerator.
4. Get an accountability buddy. Have someone in your life (a friend, a life coach, a counselor) who will remind you of those things you want to accomplish and hold you to them.
5. Join/create a Mastermind group. You will not only inspire each other with your passion for what you want to accomplish, you will also have accountability buddies and another source of inspired ideas that could help get you moving in the right direction.
6. When you get an inspired idea, start working on it. When we start looking at what we want to accomplish we can ask ourselves “What is something I can do right now to move me in the direction of my goal?” When the ideas come, we have to get cracking.
   

The more you engage in high energy activities, the more this will become habitual in your life. Then you won’t be able to help achieving your dreams and desires and you will create a sense of success and prosperity in your life that will draw the physical manifestations of those feelings into your experience.