A few weeks ago I was sitting at Design Squared, a Web Hosting company in Bernardsville with my friend Kathy working on our new Heartworks website. As usual, when Heartworks is the topic, the conversation moved from surface to depthful very quickly and we found ourselves talking about experiences we have had in life that have brought us to our knees.

Kathy’s co-worker John shared a story about when his brother-in-law was given a terminal diagnosis his mantra was “Someone else is carrying a bigger bag of hammers”. John said this as if this phrase was as common as “Have a nice day”.

When I asked him what the hell “Someone else is carrying a bigger bag of hammers” meant, he smiled in a way someone does when they know a secret. He said that to his brother-in-law, it meant that although his diagnosis was a tough one, there was somebody, somewhere, carrying a bigger burden than his own. He said this mantra brought his brother-in-law comfort and made sense of the senselessness in his mind.

I love learning new phrases that help people and I started to use this hammer one in the days that followed. One of my own personal favorites is “Thank you God that this problem is manageable.” I started saying this a few years ago and use it mostly when something that is truly just a surface issue is getting the best of me. I remind myself that “this problem is manageable” meaning, it’s do-able…I have options…it’s just part of the static of life and not worthy of pulling me under.

Because I have been in situations that have not felt manageable and have pulled me under, this phrase serves as a reminder and helps me prioritize if a circumstance is worthy of flattening me or if it’s just a part of the fluff of life… like when I came to after being knocked unconscious in a car accident on an icy Colorado highway in 1992, to find myself sideways on Rt 70 with speeding cars slamming into me, this did NOT feel manageable; the 25 hour car ride back to the East Coast from Boulder on September 12, 2001, not knowing if my sister’s husband was alive or dead did NOT feel manageable; and sitting next to my father in 2004 during cancer on days he could barely open his eyes, did NOT feel manageable.

So, for me when my daughter doesn’t make it onto the “A” team, or the new rug I want is backordered 8 weeks or even when I’m totally uncomfortable in a disagreement with someone I love, I remind my brain that “this is manageable” and it keeps me from giving the issue unnecessary attention and energy. It also often gives way to another favorite, “This too shall pass.” Mantras give our minds something to focus on instead of getting overwhelmed with the details of the story we are tempted to play over and over in our head. Mantras help us stay in line with the universal flow and keep us out of chaotic thinking. Mantras have helped carry people through some of the toughest times, and they offer us a direct connection with a truth bigger than ourselves.

I was reminded of these awesome aspects of mantras yesterday when a friend called me, looping in negative thoughts and asking if I knew of anything that would help her. She was having a party at her house, and as the ego does (especially before a party at your house) it had started to feed negative thoughts to her mind.

“I need new pillows in the family room, I should have gotten the kitchen cabinets painted, ugh! I never got those pictures framed, this bathroom sucks….” and on and on and on. Now, let me point out that this party banter with the negative, surface thoughts are coming from someone who has been in the “unmanageable.”

Trust me, three years ago when her son was diagnosed with a rare cancer, she spent an entire year in the unmanageable, and she has spent the past two years training her mind to re-familiarize itself with calm and quiet. And now here we were, calculating how many mums and pumpkins it would take to keep her from spending thousands of dollars at Home Depot and Pottery Barn before Friday night. As faith would have it, I told her, I am on a mantra kick and YES I had something that would help her…

“Thank you god for this manageable problem”

Three years ago she would have given ANYTHING to have a sucky bathroom be her problem of the week and yet, in the absence of the bigger life challenges (thank you God) her ego needed to cling to floppy pillows and dated cabinets in order to entertain itself. “OOOHHHH, YES!” She said, “That’s all this is…. got it” And that was last I’ve heard from her about the frameless pictures.

So these conversations got me thinking further about the power of mantras to help us stay on track either during life’s seemingly impossible times or when we need help keeping perspective in our day to day lives. This lead me to wondering about what other people’s mantras are and how they help, so, at our October meeting tonight (Oct. 4th) there will be a table set up to write down a word or phrase that helps you cope.

Then we are going to hang these cards up on a ribbon with clothes pins (I found the CUTEST polka dot and striped clothes pins EVER) and at the end of the meeting everyone can choose another Heartworker’s mantra to bring home and start using. So, please join us Tuesday night (tonight) for wine, cheese and crackers and the answer to the question “What’s your mantra?” Let’s never ever take for granted the many ways we can help each other feel connected to God and if you need a push to get you out of the house…use a mantra.
See you tonight!!!

Like many other people I have been feeling crazed, exhausted, dumbfounded and scared by politicians preaching peace and then breeding hate by the end of the speech. I was feeling lost in the uncertainty of what has been happening in our country and around the world, until the other day, when I was washing a strawberry. We were having our first “Possible Party” (necessary celebrations during impossible times) in our new upstairs space at Heartworks.

I was washing a strawberry for a little girl who likes strawberries, is grieving her dad and was having her friends here for her birthday party. It was her first birthday ever without her dad and we were doing everything we could to make it special for her. I began the preparations with a distracted mind filled with irritated and stress-filled thoughts about the news coverage about the convention. Somewhere between rinsing these strawberries and cutting off the green leafy part to make things easier for her (who wants to deal with a pesky stem at their birthday party?!), I was brought to a moment of peace that was so overwhelming I wept over the sink.

The power of one small act had spun its influence up through the knife and straight into my being. Preparing a strawberry had suddenly impacted me in a way that no presidential speech ever could. I felt no discord in my body or mind. A full glimpse of true internal peace. It was like by washing the strawberry for Paige, I was in the flow of connection with a higher source and the fear of the news coverage became a stone in a river being washed over by love. This seemingly small act brought me back to a place of “Everything Belongs” (the title of one of my all time favorite books), back to connection, and back to a level of gratitude that had escaped me watching the news the night before. This peace, created by one small strawberry, lasted throughout the day until I started watching the news again… when will I learn?

The next day I came back to the Heartworks House, to see a note that was left with a donation of a book for the Heartworks Lending Library. It was left by my new friend Dan and his wife, who both attended our July meeting. This simple donation brought me back to peace again. Author and Holocaust survivor Elie Wiesel made it possible for regular people like me to more deeply understand the human condition and the impact of hate in a person’s heart.

This sight of the book on the table reminded me that the suffering we are witnessing in our world today has been going on since the beginning of human existence and what I must do is take responsibility for my own mind, my own heart, and my own actions.

I can be change right here, right now by acting with a compassionate heart in every circumstance I find myself in. Dan has choices too. He could of left the Heartworks meeting feeling defeated with so much sadness on our table and in our world, but instead, he donated a book that has helped him maintain compassion and perspective in his life.

It was a reminder that I can control only myself and share peace only when I am cultivating it within my own being. We can each get swept up in the fear the news is projecting or we can donate a life altering book to a lending library.

We can get swept up in the hostility or we can do something for someone who is struggling, which sometimes is as small as handing fruit on a Happy Birthday plate to a 14 girl who just lost her dad. So if your head is spinning with the progression of this election season, know that you can refocus on small gestures and peaceful thoughts to bring yourself back to center through the connection such acts inherently create.

Come to think of it… What if every time we have a fearful or prejudicial thought, we do a small gesture for whoever is around us??

I’m going to do this and see what happens!!! Counter every fearful, exacerbated thought with a hug or letting someone cut in line or a smile or a phone call or any other ordinary way to offer the world LOVE instead of pain…. Yup- I’m doing it! Do it with me! And remember Mr. Wiesel’s words in his life altering book Night (now available in the Heartworks Lending Library).

“Mankind must remember that peace is not God’s gift to his creatures;
peace is our gift to each other.”
– Elie Weisel (9/30/28-7/2/16)

Thank you Paige for asking for strawberries, thank you Dan for adding to our lending library and thank you kindness for being my steadfast savior and helping make me great again. (pun intended).

Our Lending Library is always available!! Stop by and choose a book that has affected another Heartworkers life! You can take it home or sit in our beautiful upstairs space. Don’t forget to call first to make sure we’re at the house (908)766-4400.

So we are about three quarters of the way through our commitment of listing 10 things a day that we are grateful for (with no repeats). This practice forces us to put gratitude in the forefront of everything we do and it has been a heart opening experience.

When the Advisory Board arrived this week for our meeting, we created a gratitude list for the day. I happen to know a lot of the things that are going on for the women gathered here. And so for me the list makes sense and I understand why certain people are grateful for certain things. Looking at the list it reminded me of how, when we don’t know somebody’s story, it’s so easy to judge. And how often I catch myself in judgment, like, all day long, catching myself in judgment type of judgment. So I wondered when we post lists like this to the public,

are we even judging each other’s gratitude lists???

Judgment is quick and its powerful. It comes on fast and unconsciously. And before I started paying attention to it in my own mind, judgment seemed reasonable and normal. Now I see it as a trap my mind uses to keep me stuck and disconnected from God. So I have trained myself to catch judgment and shift it into something more productive, like gratitude. When I am in judgment of someone or something (again… it can be everyday all day) I am just staying stuck in my own hell and not seeing clearly.

So when I catch myself in judgment I immediately start praying for a higher understanding to help me get un-stuck. Today I felt protective when Beka wanted to post the gratitude list my advisory board put together, cringing at the possibility of someone reading the list and judging its contents. When it was my dear friend’s turn to add to the list she said “My chocolate milk Megan brought me”.

As I added it to the list I wondered if people’s fast and unconscious judgment would kick in and say “Why in the world would someone be grateful for a glass of chocolate milk? What is up with these Heartworkers? Don’t they have bigger things to be grateful for???” so I am here to expose the hidden power of small gestures like a glass of chocolate milk. My friend is going through enough daily uncertainty and challenges with her health to know to be grateful for simple things like a chocolate milk brought to her by someone who loves her. I don’t know what the glass of chocolate milk did for her, but I know what it did for me as I was pouring it this morning… gratitude.

Thank you that my friend feels good enough to come to the meeting.
Thank you that I can bring her something she can digest and tastes good.
Thank you for the ability to do something for her.
Thank you for milk.
Thank you for my refrigerator to keep it cold.
Thank you for her doctors.
Thank you that we met.
Thank you that we have so many laughs even when things suck.
Thank you for my advisory board.
Thank you for hope.

So because this glass of chocolate milk offered my heart so much love and obviously affected her as well, I felt nervous about the possible misinterpretation of it on the list! I felt in love with the little red cup I had poured it into. When she drank it I felt so grateful that with all the things I have no control over, I could do this one small thing for her.

It reminded me that with all the big stuff happening in life, most times it is the smallest of things that bring us back to center. The healing comes when we take gratitude seriously enough to become humbled by the smallest of things. The big things are easier and more obvious… our health, our family, our home. It’s the digging deep to find gratitude in a glass of chocolate milk that starts to peel back the layers of our hearts and this truth is certainly something worthy of making the list. Judgment or no judgment.

Reflection: Let’s practice giving with gratitude and receiving with gratitude. Let’s be grateful for the smallest of comforts in this uncertain life.