When Life Gives You Lemons…

Happy Second Sunday of Advent, everyone! Less than two weeks until Christmas.

Brrr! Today is chilly. It was 19 degrees this morning on the way to Mass. Still, not a drop of snow on the ground.

Now, as for the lemons; I had a rather “lemony” experience this morning. After Mass my dad “surprised” us and took us to a nearby parish for a country-style breakfast. At the outset, I was pretty annoyed: why didn’t they tell me! I had stuff to do…I could’ve at least brought something to work on if I would’ve known! I vocally huffed and puffed a little bit, but in the end I was stuck sitting in the van. It was one of those situations where I could either make the best of it or make myself miserable. I realize now that it wasn’t very nice or thoughtful of me to project my malcontent on others. They had every right to enjoy that breakfast if they so desired. By now I’m sure some of you are wondering why exactly I didn’t go in and eat with them. The answer is pretty simple: I don’t like that kind of food. As someone with an eating disorder background it is easy to suppose that this is just my disordered tendencies popping up again. I would disagree with that, however. First off, I truly do not enjoy eggs or meat. Secondly, when I eat a bunch of junk (e.g., refined sugars and flours, etc.) I don’t feel my best, so why have my dad waste the money on a ticket for a meal that would leave me feeling lousy?  It just isn’t worth it to me to feel that way (especially if I don’t enjoy it in the first place). I also feel it is important to eat things that give me energy and clarity; there is a strong—and often overlooked—link between food and mood. Sure, I could’ve gone in and socialized but I thought it would just be confusing if I went in and didn’t eat (you know, because you have to pay to get it). And for the record, I made sure to eat a good breakfast when I got home. : )

Okay…so now that I’ve established that, I’m still stuck sitting in the van without a notebook, a book, or anything to “do”. Oh! The horror. Suddenly, it dawned on me: I could take a walk. The church was located fairly close to the downtown and it was a pretty safe residential area, so this seemed like it would work wonderfully. So I left a note on the driver seat, made sure I took my phone and set out for a brisk (and I mean VERY brisk!) 20-25 minute walk—periodically checking back of course to see if they were done. During my walk I tried to breathe in deeply and let go of the aggravation that had welled up inside of me surrounding the situation. Negative thoughts are like poison to the body. Just recently I have learned a little more about this. When we breed such malcontent and anger it really just hurts us—not only mentally, but physically as well. In short, there are real internal changes our body goes through in response to these emotions and they aren’t good for us. So in the end this turned into a great opportunity for me to get my daily walk in first thing and I even got a blog post out of it. Life isn’t so bad after all!

This whole situation may not seem like a big deal, but it kind of was for me. It was just an example of how easy it is in our day to day lives to think that our happiness or lack of happiness depends on things, or situations, or people. When those don’t align for us, however, sometimes we just need to take a step back and see how we can use whatever is hindering us as an opportunity— instead of just sitting there wallowing in self-pity or anger. In other words, sometimes we just need to see how we can turn the lemons in our life into lemonade.