It's A Hard Knock Life...

"Not so great things happen sometimes. It's why it's called life, not heaven." 

Wow. There are some words that speak to you. Not in the deep resonating way like, "Yes...yes, I know this to be true." I mean the words that speak to you in the 'make-you-stop-in-your-tracks,' kind of way because they DEMAND an immediate adjustment of your perception of the world. And all you can do for what feels like the longest 3 seconds ever, is blink.

Life unfortunately requires us to wade through crap. It's part of the package. There are wonderful and beautiful moments, and then there are moments that can be ugly. Really ugly. I've been going through some personal experiences lately that I'm finding validate a lot of what I've learned while studying successful people: attitude is one of the only controllable factors, life, is not.

We can control our actions, our attitude, and our thoughts. They are, in truth, the only three things that we can control in life. They are responsible for our altitude and direction. 

I've been marveling at how studying this kind of material has changed how I deal with life. I had one of those moments where the floor drops out from under you.  In an instant it feels like life has turned upside down and someone forgot to tell you which way is up. On Saturday, my father had a heart attack.  My dad has been my hero since I knew what heroes were, so the moments riding with him, clutching his chest, to the hospital were some of the most terrifying of my life.

My point isn't to talk about the scary moments.  I'm not here to talk about the valleys.  I want to talk to you about how I got through one of my mine.  I want to talk to you about how I went through a valley and came out on the other side.  Here are four things I did throughout my dad's hospital and surgery experience, I'm going to call it Intentional Living.

1.  I Got Dressed Up

I made sure I looked sharp every single day we went to the hospital.  There's a lot of research that has gone into how dress not only effects how people treat us, but dramatically impacts our attitude and our thought process.  We think differently in different clothes.  I believe in stacking the deck in my favor.  I wanted to be on my A game, so it was sharp business casual every day.

• Forbes Article, Point #7
• Article discussing how clothing effects thought process (DailyMail.co.uk)

2. Focus on the Future

No matter what was happening or what news we were getting, we verbalized a detailed picture of the future that we wanted to happen.  And I mean detailed.  We told that story to each other often.  Not only did this help us control our fear, but it stopped the negative waterfalls.  We knew we need a relaxed and confident attitude so we could pour that into my dad.  Any doctor or surgeon will tell you that a patient's mindset going into surgery is really vital for a good outcome.
 

3.  Gratitude and Giving to Others

I have found when in stressful or difficult circumstances, being intentionally full of gratitude (and expressing it) makes a lot of things better.  Something happens neurologically when we do nice things for other people, it makes us feel better.  We were abundant but genuine with our praise of the staff, we took time to know their names, and we smiled at EVERYONE.  We also tried to encourage and reach out to other families.  A smile and kind word goes a long way.  We weren't the only ones hurting and sometimes perspective puts a whole different light on what you're dealing with.

• Doing Good Makes You Feel Good

4.  Faith

If you're not a Christian, I'll understand if you skip this one, but I want to share my story with you.  Personally, I am very faith-filled but not especially religious.  I have never walked in faith as intensely as I did throughout this experience though.  Sharing your story matters.  Prior to this experience I had the pleasure to meet two women, Renee & Joanne, that I would call faith warriors.  They were Godly women, but they exemplified everything I've never seen in Christianity growing up.  They cast no judgement but they made no bones about being clear concerning their own beliefs. They spoke of their walk with Jesus through tremendous challenges, things I literally can't even imagine going through.  Their victory gave me hope and strength.  Their example was my outline, and I clung to it. 

I walked through this with what I'll call "determined knowing" that we would be granted healing, because that's exactly what both Renee and Joanne did.  I simply refused to consider any other possibility.  We sought out Christ through prayer, bible readings, and praise music.  I called it intentional Joy.  I had music playing through my house in the morning and we were in total worship and praise.  I'd be a liar if I told I didn't weep, but it wasn't sadness.  The only word I can call it is reverence.  Gratitude for the healing I knew was coming. 

We live in a broken world, I get it.  And sometimes we ask for things that we don't get.  When we arrived at the hospital I was praying his chest pain was gastric.  They said it was a heart attack.  So I started praying for a quick fix in the Cath-lab.  Then they came out and said we had 3 major arteries with 98% blockage and open heart surgery was the only option.

On the other side of this I can tell you I've found a multitude of blessings.  But I also was looking for them.  I knew I needed to think about this differently from the moment they said surgery.  I refused to live through this in fear and doubt and I know the power of gratitude.  I found blessings EVERYWHERE.  I started intentionally shaping our story.  If you had asked me on the ride to the hospital if it felt like a blessing, I probably would have just stared at you.  If you ask me now, I'd tell you it was the best thing that could have happened.  I can only tell you my story, I can't claim it's a one-size fits all, but I think every story matters.


I wanted to share these because I know going forward, they're points I'll use to navigate many situations that life throws at me.  I'm going to have a life of tremendous impact and that almost guarantees that difficult situations will be coming.  No one ever did anything significant without overcoming many obstacles and hurdles.  We have to deal with life one way or another...why not learn to navigate well?

#Life