Tag: writing

Honoring the Gift

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Recently, someone I know received a heart transplant.

A real, honest-to-goodness miracle.

The heart was a perfect match. Surgery went well. Recovery went well. In fact, things went so well that they were released from the hospital earlier than expected.

Then they ended up back in the hospital.

From what I understand, they were feeling so good that they weren’t following all the precautions the doctors had recommended.

I’ll admit, I spent a few days serving as the self-appointed Chairperson of the Committee for Other People’s Life Choices.

Then I realized something uncomfortable.

The questions I was asking about someone else’s heart were questions I had never seriously asked about my own.

Because I, too, have been given a heart.

Not a transplanted one. The original equipment model.

It has faithfully shown up every day for nearly six decades without asking much in return.

And unlike the transplant recipient, I didn’t even have to wait for mine.

It was given to me freely.

By the greatest Giver of all.

That realization led to some uncomfortable questions.

Do I take care of my body the way I should?

Do I exercise enough?

Do I eat the way I know I should?

The answer to most of those questions depends on the day you ask me and whether Dr Pepper Zero Sugar counts as a food group.

But the more I thought about it, the more I realized the question was bigger than physical health.

What does it mean to honor the gift of being alive?

Not just to keep my body alive.

To keep my soul alive.

To keep curiosity alive.

To keep hope alive.

To keep kindness alive.

To keep laughter alive.

To keep writing alive, even when nobody is waiting for the next blog post.

To keep learning new things at an age when I occasionally wonder if I should have everything figured out by now.

To keep loving people despite disappointment.

To keep showing up.

There is a difference between merely staying alive and truly living.

I’m not talking about skydiving or climbing Mount Everest. Frankly, both sound exhausting.

I’m talking about being awake to the life we’ve been given.

Because if I’m honest, I spend a lot of time thinking about all the things I should be doing better.

I should eat better.

I should exercise more.

I should be more disciplined.

I should be further along.

I should have figured this out years ago.

The problem with “should” is that it usually brings shame along as a traveling companion.

Lately, I’ve been wondering if there is a better question.

Not:

Why aren’t you doing better?

But:

How can you honor the gift today?

Some days, honoring the gift might look like taking a walk.

Some days it might look like calling a friend.

Some days it might look like setting a boundary.

Some days it might look like resting.

Some days it might look like starting something that scares you.

Some days it might simply mean getting back up after making a mess of the day before.

I’ve discovered that not every imperfection is evidence of failure.

Sometimes it’s simply another place where I can be intentional.

Another opportunity to grow.

Another reminder that I am still becoming.

Because honoring the gift of being alive isn’t about doing everything right.

It’s choosing to live with purpose and intention, even on the days we feel messy, imperfect, unseen, or painfully aware of our mistakes.

The beautiful thing about a heart is that it doesn’t quit because yesterday was imperfect.

Every morning, it is still beating.

Maybe that’s the invitation for the rest of us, too.

The Dumb Kids Use Computers

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When I was in grade school, I was the reading kid.

You know the type.

Top reading group.
A-plus student.
The one teacher asked to help other students.
The one who felt pretty confident… at least when words were involved.

Math?

That was a different story entirely.

I struggled.
I got tutored.
And in sixth grade, back in 1975, my school introduced something new for kids who needed extra help in math:

Computer class.

Now, to be clear, this was not the exciting, cutting-edge, “the future is here” kind of computer class.

This was the “you need help, so go work on math problems on the computer” kind of class.

At least, that’s how I understood it.

One day, my teacher reminded me, “Kaydawn, don’t forget to go to your computer class.”

And then one of the boys in my class said:

“Only dumb kids go to computers.”

Kids can be cruel.
Kids can be careless.
And sometimes, kids say things that lodge themselves into places we don’t even realize are vulnerable.

At the time, I don’t know that I consciously believed him.

But somewhere along the way, I think part of me did.

Because here’s what I’ve come to realize:

That moment may have shaped more than how I felt about math.

It may have quietly influenced how I felt about technology, learning new things, and even my own intelligence.

Logically, I know how ridiculous that sounds now.

Computers are everywhere.
In our homes.
In our cars.
In our pockets.

We use them for work, connection, creativity, problem-solving, and yes… blogging.

No one hears “she uses a computer” and assumes incompetence.

And yet, old beliefs don’t always disappear just because they no longer make sense.

Sometimes they just get quieter.
They hide underneath frustration.
Avoidance.
Self-doubt.
That subtle voice that says, “This is probably not for you.”

Looking back, I wonder if part of me hasn’t resisted technology because I’m bad at it…

…but because some small, younger part of me learned to associate it with feeling dumb.

And maybe avoiding it felt safer than risking that feeling again.

Funny how protection can sometimes look a lot like procrastination.

Or stubbornness.
Or “I’m just not good at this.”

The truth is, we all carry stories.

Things people said.
Moments we misunderstood.
Labels we accidentally accepted.

And sometimes, without even realizing it, we keep living as though those stories are still true.

This blog, in many ways, is me challenging one of mine.

Not because I have something to prove to anyone else…

…but because maybe I still have something to prove to myself.

That I am capable of learning.
Capable of changing.
Capable of questioning beliefs that never deserved permanent residence in my mind.

I can’t be the only one carrying around an outdated story.

Maybe yours isn’t about computers.

Maybe it’s about your body.
Your worth.
Your voice.
Your intelligence.
Your lovability.

Whatever it is, maybe it’s worth asking:

Who told me that?

And more importantly…

Do I still believe them?

Because maybe the problem was never that we were incapable.

Maybe we were just still listening to someone who didn’t know what they were talking about.

Turns out, I was never dumb.

I was just still listening to a sixth grader.

I have a feeling I’m not the only one.

What outdated story are you still carrying around… and who told you it was true?

Grace, Growth, and the Small Wins We Forget to Celebrate

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There’s something I’m realizing lately:

I am often far better at giving grace to other people than I am to myself.

If a friend is overwhelmed?
I get it.

If someone I care about drops the ball?
I understand.

If life hits hard and they’re doing the best they can?
Compassion. Every time.

But me?

Oh no. Apparently, I should have it all figured out, stay motivated, never procrastinate, heal perfectly, show up consistently, and possibly also become a morning person.

(We all know that last one is unlikely.)

Somewhere along the way, many of us learned to treat our own humanity like failure.

We minimized our progress because it wasn’t big enough.
We dismissed our effort because it wasn’t perfect.
We overlook growth because we’re too focused on how far we still have to go.

And honestly? That’s exhausting.

I’m starting to think grace is about making room.

Room to be a work in progress.
Room to celebrate small wins.
Room to acknowledge that maybe getting out of an old pattern is worth noticing, even if it’s not dramatic.

Maybe grace is recognizing that healing, growth, discipline, and change are usually built in tiny, unremarkable moments that don’t always look impressive from the outside.

And maybe… maybe we deserve to celebrate those moments more.

Not in a “everyone gets a trophy” kind of way.

But in a “hey, I handled that better than I used to” kind of way.

I’ve been quietly sitting with the idea that we may need to get better at documenting our wins—not just the giant, obvious milestones, but the subtle victories too.

The days we paused instead of spiraling.
The moments we chose kindness over criticism.
The times we kept going.

Maybe those count more than we think.

And maybe giving grace—to ourselves and others—isn’t weakness.

Maybe it’s how we keep growing.

So here’s your reminder (and honestly, mine too):

Celebrate the good.
In yourself.
In others.
In the tiny things.

Because life is hard enough without constantly moving the finish line.

And sometimes…

The victory is simply noticing you’re doing better than you were before.

Practice Doesn’t Care If You Feel Like It

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I say this to my clients all the time:

“Any change takes practice.”

We usually laugh about it, because now some of them beat me to it. Before I can even say the word “practice,” they’re already smiling like, I know, I know… practice.

It’s a good reminder.

Turns out, I don’t just teach this… I have to live it

This week, I didn’t feel inspired to write.

Not even a little.

No big ideas. No meaningful insights. Nothing felt worth putting into words. And if I’m being honest, it didn’t take much for my brain to start offering me reasons to skip it altogether.

And honestly? That’s kind of my pattern.

If it’s hard, or inconvenient, or not coming easily, there’s a part of me that starts looking for the exit.

“Maybe skip this week.”
“No one will notice.”
“You can do better next week.”

All very reasonable. All very convincing.

But here’s the problem.

Practice doesn’t care if I feel like it.

It doesn’t care if I’m tired, or uninspired, or mildly annoyed that I have nothing profound to say. It doesn’t wait for motivation to show up and get me going.

It just quietly asks the same thing every time:

Are you going to show up or not?

I think sometimes we believe that if something matters, we’ll feel driven to do it.

But in my experience, the things that matter the most are usually the ones that require the most practice… and the least amount of feeling like it.

Consistency isn’t glamorous.

It’s sitting down when you don’t want to.
It’s writing something that isn’t your best.
It’s doing it anyway.

So here I am.

Not inspired. Not particularly eloquent. Definitely not perfect.

But I showed up.

And right now, that feels like enough.

Perfect? No.
Acceptable? Yeah.
Still here? Also, yes.

Many naps later

azn8ive672 Comments

****UPDATE**** I did indeed write this post yesterday. Due to some technical difficulties, I did not get it posted. So, in full transparency, I am a work in progress. With that said, here is yesterday’s post.

A few weeks ago I woke up in the middle of the night and couldn’t fall back asleep.

You know that strange hour of the night where the house is quiet, the world feels paused, and your brain decides it is the perfect time to revisit every idea you’ve ever had?

Somewhere in that sleepless moment, I started thinking about writing again.

Not writing someday.
Not writing when I had more time.
Not writing when I finally felt organized, inspired, productive, or magically transformed into someone who never procrastinates.

Just writing.

So in that quiet moment of insomnia, I made a small promise to myself:

I would write every Sunday.

Simple enough, right?

Except promises we make to ourselves have a funny way of becoming negotiable.

And this morning, the negotiations began.

It didn’t start dramatically. There was no internal battle music playing. No heroic speech.

Just a quiet suggestion from my very reasonable brain.

“You could move writing to Monday.”

After all, it had been a long week.
Sunday mornings are peaceful.
And technically, Monday is also a perfectly acceptable day to write.

But then another thought appeared, and it was far less polite.

“If you move it today, you’ll move it again next week.”

And the week after that.

Not because I’m lazy.

But because I know myself well enough to recognize how easily promises to myself become flexible when no one else is watching.

That moment didn’t feel like motivation.

It felt like resignation.

Not the kind where you give up.

The kind where you finally stop pretending you don’t know what you’re doing.

Clarity has a strange power like that.

It doesn’t come with fireworks or dramatic music. It just quietly says:

“I see the pattern.”

So I opened my laptop.

And many naps later, here we are.

If you’ve ever struggled with procrastination, you might appreciate a TED Talk that made me laugh out loud the first time I watched it. It’s called “Inside the Mind of a Master Procrastinator” by Tim Urban. He describes the battle between the rational decision-maker and the Instant Gratification Monkey living in our brains.

If you haven’t seen it, it’s worth ten minutes of your life:
https://www.ted.com/talks/tim_urban_inside_the_mind_of_a_master_procrastinator

What I love about his talk is how human it is.

Procrastination isn’t usually about laziness.

It’s about negotiation.

The quiet, constant bargaining we do with ourselves.

Maybe tomorrow.
Maybe later.
Maybe when I feel more ready.

But sometimes a small victory happens in a very quiet moment.

The moment we stop negotiating.

The moment we simply keep the promise.

Not perfectly.

Not enthusiastically.

Just honestly.

And sometimes the victory looks exactly like this:

Opening your laptop on a Sunday morning when you’d honestly rather take a nap.