{"id":657,"date":"2023-03-10T21:50:36","date_gmt":"2023-03-10T21:50:36","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/articulatingyourstrengths.org\/?p=657"},"modified":"2023-03-10T21:50:36","modified_gmt":"2023-03-10T21:50:36","slug":"may-2021","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/articulatingyourstrengths.org\/index.php\/2023\/03\/10\/may-2021\/","title":{"rendered":"May 2021"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n

The other day I stood looking out the window of the apartment at nothing in particular, and I realized in that moment how calm I was. This moment was different than other times I may feel at peace; it was as though there were an absence, rather than a presence of any thing, a depth of no thing.\u00a0 Almost as soon as I noticed it, it vanished.\u00a0 The event wasn\u2019t replaced with anything, just that the moment ended.<\/p>\n

Over the past few years and most recently through the pandemic, angst, fear, anger and similar emotions have been present more often than not.\u00a0 Every day there was a reminder of division, hatred, violence.\u00a0 The morgue trucks outside the hospital that I saw from my window were a constant reminder of the pandemic and its toll, and while long gone, they still haunt me.\u00a0 Early on in the pandemic, Jerald reminded me of the Serenity Prayer (in my head I heard, \u201cIs that all you got, man?\u201d).\u00a0 Once I put that thought aside, I started working at accepting the things I could not change and changing the things I could.<\/p>\n

As far as changes go, I started sewing; I made masks, then a quilt with scraps of fabric from masks.\u00a0 Then I made another quilt and another.\u00a0 I changed my diet and continue to follow my \u201cnew rules.”\u00a0 I incorporated the meditation practice into my morning routine rather than using a time spot which somehow eludes me at times.\u00a0 Since I made this adjustment I have not missed one day.\u00a0 At about the same time that I changed the meditation practice I started \u201cThe Quilt.”\u00a0 This quilt was well beyond my expertise offering the best of challenges, and each day I spent hours working at it.\u00a0 I made mistakes, recovered or adapted.<\/p>\n

I believe that the accumulated effect of acceptance and changes that I made helped to reinforce single-minded focus, <\/strong>so\u00a0it became possible to glimpse nothingness. It is in this nothingness that I experienced pure serenity<\/em> and the rediscovery of this strength.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The other day I stood looking out the window of the apartment at nothing in particular, and I realized in that moment how calm I was. This moment was different than other times I may feel at peace; it was as though there were an absence, rather than a presence of any thing, a depth …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_uag_custom_page_level_css":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[6,11,8,7,9,10],"class_list":{"0":"post-657","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-example","7":"tag-articulatingyourstrengths","8":"tag-positivemoments","9":"tag-positivepsychology","10":"tag-strengths","11":"tag-strengthsfocused","12":"tag-strengthsfocusedpractices","13":"anons"},"uagb_featured_image_src":{"full":false,"thumbnail":false,"medium":false,"medium_large":false,"large":false,"1536x1536":false,"2048x2048":false},"uagb_author_info":{"display_name":"Barb","author_link":"https:\/\/articulatingyourstrengths.org\/index.php\/author\/barb\/"},"uagb_comment_info":0,"uagb_excerpt":"The other day I stood looking out the window of the apartment at nothing in particular, and I realized in that moment how calm I was. This moment was different than other times I may feel at peace; it was as though there were an absence, rather than a presence of any thing, a depth…","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/articulatingyourstrengths.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/657","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/articulatingyourstrengths.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/articulatingyourstrengths.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/articulatingyourstrengths.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/articulatingyourstrengths.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=657"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/articulatingyourstrengths.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/657\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":664,"href":"https:\/\/articulatingyourstrengths.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/657\/revisions\/664"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/articulatingyourstrengths.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=657"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/articulatingyourstrengths.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=657"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/articulatingyourstrengths.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=657"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}