Let's Thrive - Day 5 -Think Uphill Thoughts

    When I started this 30 day focus on thriving, I knew one of my  challenges would be maintaining a positive attitude when life's little pressures started building.  Today was a reminder that doing so would require effort and focus.  Fortunately, nothing earth crumbling happened today. We didn't experience an emotional landslide or earthquake.  It was more  a matter of not letting myself slide down the slope of negativism  and fall into the pits of criticism.  I was reminded that to climb uphill and try to become a better person, I would need to exercise positive thoughts and change the destructive thoughts into constructive ones.
    With brain injuries, a common challenge is organization.  Though we have a common family calendar on our phones, the difficulty is in getting everyone to enter the event on the calendar.  I'm sure this is not unique to just families with brain injuries, but it does seem to be exacerbated by the condition.  While dealing with one of these events that popped up in our day without the appropriate calendar event popping up on our phone,  I found  my footing slipping on the rocky slope. I tried to be flexible at first, but soon stumbled  into airing my frustrations out on the family.  In the middle of spiraling downward, I suddenly caught on to a branch and recognized I needed to change my attitude.  I had to stop talking and force myself to think more positively.  These upward thoughts were needed to help  me speak more kindly and show more patience- all attributes I'm trying to cultivate in my thirty day thrive challenge.  Of course the preference next time would be that I would catch myself before I saying anything and not hurt my family with my unkind words.  For now, I have to recognize that being a caregiver requires  patience and is a process to develop.  I jokingly tell my family that I must be enrolled in the remedial patience course because I don't seem to be learning it very quickly!  In any rate, my thought for today is that "You can't climb uphill by thinking downhill thoughts."  As we ascend to higher paths, we will stumble and fall, but we can catch ourselves, repent, and ask for the Savior's help to continue upward with renewed energy and strength.  In the end it will be worth the steep climb.  This is a poem  I heard today and appreciated the timely message about climbing upward.

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                    In His Steps

"The road is rough, I said Dear Lord,
there are stones that hurt me so.
And he said, Dear child, I understand,
I walked it long ago.

"But there is a cool green path, I said
Let me walk there for a time.
No child, He gently answered me,
The green road does not climb.

"My burden, I said, is far too great,
How can I bear it so?
My child, said he, I remember its weight,
I carried my cross, you know.

"But, I said, I wish there were friends with me
Who would make my way their own.
Ah, yes, he said, Gethsemane
Was hard to face alone.

"And so I climbed the stony path,
Content at last to know
That where my Master had not gone,
I would not need to go.

"And strangely then I found new friends
The burden grew less sore
As I remembered—long ago
He went that way before."

—Leona B. Gates