In the spirit of Thanksgiving, I wanted to share thoughts around things I was thankful for, but wanted to give it a different twist. Most people share thoughts and ideas around wonderful things and people they are grateful for, however, some of my most grateful memories this year are not what I would have expected.

Let me begin with a story from just this past week.

We had an incident in our house where my son wiped out my husband’s iphone. You can only imagine the anger and unhappiness that my husband felt when he realized that all his contacts, apps, etc… were GONE! I know how it feels, I have been there. He chose some not so nice words to say in the heat of the moment and my son was devastated. When I went up into his bedroom to talk with him, he refused to acknowledge me. He hid under the bed and refused to speak to anyone. I went into his room looking to comfort him, and I was unable to do so. Here I was trying to be a “good mom” and be a loving shoulder to cry on and he didn’t want it. Why? My heart was breaking for him, because I knew he was feeling bad and wanted to stop the pain, but he didn’t want anything to do with me. All he wanted was his dad (who just claimed he wanted nothing to do with him) and refused to speak to anyone else.

Later the next day I met with a coach and we spoke about the event that occured. We took a deeper dive into what was really going on in our family relationships. Her guidance, was rather than trying to figure things out from the mind, dive into the heart. We began looking to understand how and why my son might have been feeling the way he was. Why was he looking to use my husbands iphone? What stories was he potentially creating in his head about the entire situation? What did he really want? What was his heart feeling and needing?

I realized that when I walked into his room, I was in my head and not my heart. I walked in with an agenda of wanting to comfort and console him, but what he really wanted was to be loved and accepted for who he is, my son, a child of God. Me coming into his room in my head space didn’t feel real and authentic to him at all. When I was in the moment, I couldn’t see it, I thought I was being who I needed to be, but now I see. This evening before bedtime, I shifted my energy to be more heart centered than mind centered and he allowed me into his loving presence. I was able to love him and snuggle with him where he could feel my love. What a precious GIFT he is to me and an amazing lesson learned from this not so happy experience. Before today, I never would have thought to think about the unexpected things that happen as gifts, but now that I am awake and can totally see, I can embrace the lessons to be learned from the experiences. I listed below the top 10 that came to mind this morning, but I am sure there are many more of these unexpected.

Top 10 Unexpected Things I am Grateful for (In no particular order)

1. My son stealing my ipad and taking it to school with him
2. My mom leaving the dinner table during the middle of my 5 year old son’s birthday
3. Completely bombing an audition for a choir
4. Leaving my wallet at starbucks for someone else to steal and the use my debit card to purchase “clash of clan” in app purchases
5. My dad sending me an email resigning from being my sons confirmation sponsor
6. Outsourcing some activities and not receiving deliverables on time (frustrating)
7. My best friend telling me she was no longer going on trip with me (and that I should be happy for her)
8. A few financial blunders; finding ourselves in debt that we never realized
9. My son messing up my husband’s iphone (and him not wanting any comfort from me)
10. And yes, gaining a few extra pounds this year (there are lessons to be learned here as well)

I will continue to cherish the times where my children push my buttons, a failure or setback occurs, or something unexpected happens. These are truly gifts from God. As I reflect to look at my top 10 list of Unexpected Things I am Grateful for, I am see how challenges and failures can really become some of the best lessons learned in life. However, I must take the time to be awake and process my feelings in the moment and then begin to embrace life’s many beautiful lessons. These are not things that I would ever wish for myself or for anyone, but am grateful that God knew what my heart and soul needed. I have certainly learned valuable life lessons in each and every “unexpected gift”.

I encourage you to feel into the “Unexpected Things” you are grateful for this year.

In the spirit of Thanksgiving, I wanted to share thoughts around things I was thankful for, but wanted to give it a different twist. Most people share thoughts and ideas around wonderful things and people they are grateful for, however, some of my most grateful memories this year are not what I would have expected.

Let me begin with a story from just this past week.

We had an incident in our house where my son wiped out my husband’s iphone. You can only imagine the anger and unhappiness that my husband felt when he realized that all his contacts, apps, etc… were GONE! I know how it feels, I have been there. He chose some not so nice words to say in the heat of the moment and my son was devastated. When I went up into his bedroom to talk with him, he refused to acknowledge me. He hid under the bed and refused to speak to anyone. I went into his room looking to comfort him, and I was unable to do so. Here I was trying to be a “good mom” and be a loving shoulder to cry on and he didn’t want it. Why? My heart was breaking for him, because I knew he was feeling bad and wanted to stop the pain, but he didn’t want anything to do with me. All he wanted was his dad (who just claimed he wanted nothing to do with him) and refused to speak to anyone else.

Later the next day I met with a coach and we spoke about the event that occured. We took a deeper dive into what was really going on in our family relationships. Her guidance, was rather than trying to figure things out from the mind, dive into the heart. We began looking to understand how and why my son might have been feeling the way he was. Why was he looking to use my husbands iphone? What stories was he potentially creating in his head about the entire situation? What did he really want? What was his heart feeling and needing?

I realized that when I walked into his room, I was in my head and not my heart. I walked in with an agenda of wanting to comfort and console him, but what he really wanted was to be loved and accepted for who he is, my son, a child of God. Me coming into his room in my head space didn’t feel real and authentic to him at all. When I was in the moment, I couldn’t see it, I thought I was being who I needed to be, but now I see. This evening before bedtime, I shifted my energy to be more heart centered than mind centered and he allowed me into his loving presence. I was able to love him and snuggle with him where he could feel my love. What a precious GIFT he is to me and an amazing lesson learned from this not so happy experience. Before today, I never would have thought to think about the unexpected things that happen as gifts, but now that I am awake and can totally see, I can embrace the lessons to be learned from the experiences. I listed below the top 10 that came to mind this morning, but I am sure there are many more of these unexpected.

Top 10 Unexpected Things I am Grateful for (In no particular order)

1. My son stealing my ipad and taking it to school with him
2. My mom leaving the dinner table during the middle of my 5 year old son’s birthday
3. Completely bombing an audition for a choir
4. Leaving my wallet at starbucks for someone else to steal and the use my debit card to purchase “clash of clan” in app purchases
5. My dad sending me an email resigning from being my sons confirmation sponsor
6. Outsourcing some activities and not receiving deliverables on time (frustrating)
7. My best friend telling me she was no longer going on trip with me (and that I should be happy for her)
8. A few financial blunders; finding ourselves in debt that we never realized
9. My son messing up my husband’s iphone (and him not wanting any comfort from me)
10. And yes, gaining a few extra pounds this year (there are lessons to be learned here as well)

I will continue to cherish the times where my children push my buttons, a failure or setback occurs, or something unexpected happens. These are truly gifts from God. As I reflect to look at my top 10 list of Unexpected Things I am Grateful for, I am see how challenges and failures can really become some of the best lessons learned in life. However, I must take the time to be awake and process my feelings in the moment and then begin to embrace life’s many beautiful lessons. These are not things that I would ever wish for myself or for anyone, but am grateful that God knew what my heart and soul needed. I have certainly learned valuable life lessons in each and every “unexpected gift”.

I encourage you to feel into the “Unexpected Things” you are grateful for this year.

I wish, I wish, I wish.  I have said those words many times.  I wish my office was organized, functional and beautiful.  As someone who works from home majority of the time, I spend many hours of the day in my office.   I want the space that I work in to be inviting with positive energy and not cluttered and disorganized with things all over the place.  Last week, I made a decision last week I was going to stop the madness and ask for help in this area.

I have always longed for my house to be neat and organized as well as look nice too, but it has  never been my specialty.  I decided to hire two design consultants to come in and re-organize and re-decorate my office.  Since I basically live in this space, there are lots of papers everywhere, books readily available, stuff for kids, pictures, scrapbooks, etc… You name it, it was likely in my office, all but a pool table.  (That is in inside joke for those of you who know Jim Wacker, whose office is right next to the pool table.) =)

These 2 women came to my home and in 2.5 hours we tossed a bunch of papers, organized my files, moved around furniture and redecorated my room.  I was completely amazed at what they were able to do in such a short period of time.

In addition to that, there were a few more items that would totally uplevel the space.  A bulletin board, curtains, rug and a few other trinkets to make it functional and pretty.  The designers made a list for me and said they would give me ideas and then I could go shopping.  Or for an extra fee they would do the shopping for me.

WOW!  I typically don’t like to pay people for something that I could do myself, especially shopping, however, I knew that if I tried to do it myself, it would

a) take me longer than it needed to,
b) I would create stress and frustration in looking for “the perfect” items.  (which of course if I knew what ti buy, I would have already bought it).
c) I could spend hours online shopping and still not find what i was looking for.

Normally I would deliberate for hours and outline the pros and cons of  my option.  This time, I listened to my heart and decided to take the plunge and let them shop for me.  Yes, I actually paid someone to buy decorations and supplies for my office.  It was such an invigorating feeling to be free of having to make these shopping decisions and know and believe with confidence that they would do an amazing job.

How many times have you wished for something and thought that maybe you should hire someone else, but you didn’t because you knew you should be able to do it ?  Hire a cleaning lady, someone to mow your lawn, organize your home, paint a room, fix broken things in the house. a tutor for your kids etc…  I encourage you to seriously think about the VALUE of having someone else who is skilled in this area do it for you.   You are actually giving them a gift by allowing them to share their gifts with you.  The energy exchange is truly amazing.  Having someone else who LOVES to do these tasks can provide you with so much more ENERGY.  You no longer have to feel stressed or worries about something, as you know it will get completed.

I would love to hear about situations where you have paid someone else to do something amazing for you that allowed you more time and energy to do the things you LOVE to do.

(p.s.  If anyone lives in the Chicago Western Suburbs and is interested in their contact information please let me know).  They are amazing and inexpensive.  TOTALLY MORE THAN WORTH THE VALUE>

We all know how good it feels to write down a list of things to do and feel this sense of relief when things get crossed off that list. It is a sense of accomplishment. Even if the task is as simple as write a thank you note, call a friend. Some of us are so busy that our lists are so long because we don’t want to forget about all of the little things that need to be taken care of. Let’s face it, if we don’t write it down, will be actually remember to do it?

As my husband prepared for going out of town this weekend, I suddenly realized that I was going to be responsible for more things with him gone. My husband is a stay an home dad and is rarely ever gone, so a change in routine like this is not typical for me. My son has a hockey tournament in Detroit, so they are gone from Thursday to Sunday and I realized that my normal routine was going to be out of whack.

My first thought that set in was PANIC. Oh Crap! I need to re-arrange my schedule. Of course I needed to add a few things to my daily “to do’s”, re-arrange some appointments and change up my regular routine. My mind was initially thinking, how am I going to run all 3 kids to everywhere they need to be and still do the things that I already had planned. If we are not careful, the mind can drive us absolutely crazy. After I looked at my calendar and accounted for a few big things, I then came across this photo below.

I was then reminded of the important things in life. So while I had other things planned for the evening, I listened to my heart and just went with the flow. Each boy had their own things going on. My oldest son took responsibility for helping out to make dinner without asking. Yeah! I was so grateful and counted my blessings. My youngest want to carve a pumpkin, snuggle, play games and read books, so while it wasn’t in the plan to spend all that time with him I did it anyway. He of course prolonged bed time, since I had 3 kids to take care of myself, but I loved every minute of it. I let go of controlling the evening to my plans. Then there is my other son who has been struggling with turning in homework at school. I grounded him when he got home, because this was the 4th time this week that some teacher reached out and said that he didn’t turn in or complete his homework. Ugh! I was so not having the patience for him. So I had to breathe. (MANY TIMES) He of course was not happy with me this evening, when my consequences were not the same as his dads. I could feel the tension in our relationship which started aching at my heart.

None of this was on the “TO DO” list, however, it was definitely on God’s to do list. There was a lesson to be learned from each child and experience I encountered. Even as I write this now as the kids are off to sleep, I can’t help but think about my middle son and what I am supposed to learn from this experience. I keep being attracted to the words Practice Kindness from the picture. I certainly was not being kind to him, since I was disappointed in his behaviors and needed to teach him some important lessons, but maybe there is something going on with him and he is just crying out for attention. Is there something going on that I haven’t be present to? Being mad, frustrated and disappointed is not going to help. This is my chance to be open to what is really going on. More to ponder this weekend. If I focused on my original to do list for the day, I would have totally missed out on the gift of being present.

So the next time you make your “To Do” list, be sure to add the little things that really matter as you never know what lessons might be revealed to you.