Healthy Happy Loving Life: The Pinball Machine of Life

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adjusting to change, energy, Feeling energized, fulfilled, Garth Brooks, grateful, healing, Kebba, living beyond, making changes, moving on, Relationships, stress tips

Photo by http://www.livelifehappy.com

© 2021 Kebba Buckley Button.  World Rights Reserved.

Today, I offer my Pinball Machine Theory of Life.   Think of the top 3 disappointing events you’ve had in life.  A relationship suddenly over.  The job you KNEW was yours, and someone else got it.  The friend who suddenly cut you off.  Remember how much that hurt?

Sometimes, it’s like you are the ball on a pinball game board.  After the token goes into the machine, and the spring launcher is pulled and released, the ball zips up the slope of the game board.  Sometimes, like the pinball, you are racing up the board of life thinking you are definitely headed in a certain direction.  Then– wham!– you get hit with a flipper.  For a moment, you don’t even know what your new direction is, right?  You’re just reverberating with the impact of the flipper (ow!), feeling the pain, and trying to get your bearings again.  Then you begin collecting yourself, look up, and see what unintended direction you are now headed in.  Yikes! Not what the plan was!  And how many time has this happened to you?

Grammy-Award winning musician Garth Brooks has a powerful song called, “Thank God for Unanswered Prayers.”  In the song, he tells of being out with his wife and seeing the woman he dated in high school.  In high school, he used to pray for that relationship every night.  By the time he saw his old flame again, he realized he would not be in the amazing relationship he was in with his wife, had the relationship with his old flame worked out.  So now he is massively grateful for the passing of that old relationship!  He was redirected on the Pinball Machine of Life, and now he is deeply glad.

If you are a person of faith, remember this timeless truth [Romans 8:28]:  We know that in all things, God works for the good of those who love him…

When the flippers hit you, you are being directed for powerful purposes, by a Wisdom greater than our own.  Do your best to deal with the hurt.  Then embrace the new opportunities that are arriving.  Be the happy and grateful pinball.

Now, doesn’t it feel great to be even more Healthy, Happy, and Loving Life^sm?  It’s up to you!  

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Kebba Buckley Button is a stress solutions expert, holistic guide, and award-winning author who celebrates life.  She has a longtime energy healing practice and is an ordained minister. Among her books are: Discover The Secret Energized You (http://tinyurl.com/b44v3br), Inspirations for Peace Within:  Quotes and Images to Uplift and Inspire, and Sacred Meditation: Embracing the Divine.  The books are available on Amazon and through Kebba’s office.   To email us, kebba@kebba.com .

Books by Kebba Buckley Button

UpBeat Living: Life Bats You… in a Different Direction

Tags

adjusting to change, energy, Feeling energized, friendships, fulfilled, grateful, healing, Kebba, living beyond, making changes, moving on, Relationships, stress tips

Photo by http://www.livelifehappy.com

© 2012 Kebba Buckley Button.  World Rights Reserved.

Think of the top 3 disappointing events you’ve had in life.  Maybe you were in a relationship you believed in, and suddenly it was over.  How about the time you had your heart set on a job, you knew you were the prime candidate, and you didn’t get it?  Then there was that friend who suddenly cut you off, with a weird reason or no reason.  Remember how much that hurt?

Enter, the Pinball Machine Theory of Life.

Sometimes, it’s like you are the ball on a pinball game board.  After the token goes into the machine, and the spring launcher is pulled and released, the ball zips up the slope of the game board.  Sometimes, like the pinball, you are racing up the board of life thinking you are definitely headed in a certain direction.  The right direction, surely.  Then you get hit with a flipper.  Ow!  For a moment, you don’t even know what your new direction is, right?  You’re just reverberating with the impact of the flipper (ow!), feeling the pain, and trying to get your bearings again.  Then you begin collecting yourself, look up, and see what unintended direction you are now headed in.  Yikes!  This is a new direction!  Not what the plan was!

Now let’s talk about that major relationship change.  Grammy-Award winning musician Garth Brooks has a powerful song called, “Thank God for Unanswered Prayers.”  In the song, he tells of being at a football game with his wife and seeing the woman he dated in high school.  Back then, he used to pray for that relationship every night.  By the time he saw his old flame again, he realized he would not be in the amazing relationship he was in with his wife, had the relationship with his old flame worked out.  So now he is massively grateful for the passing of that old relationship.  He was redirected on the Pinball Machine of Life, and now he is deeply glad.

Now, that perfect job you didn’t get—what changes would that have created in your life?  Changes that would have prevented something great that then did happen?  Here’s an example from this writer’s life:  20 years ago, she flew to Denver for a pre-hiring interview with an international company.  Having done projects with the CEO of the Colorado Division, she knew it was only a matter of negotiating the position and salary.  In Denver, she scoped out where to rent an apartment and what moving arrangements would be involved.  But when she called the man who was to interview her, he said he would call back in 20 minutes and never did. He never managed to meet with her during the 5 days she was there.  When the CEO asked how her conversations with the interviewer went, she told him they never even met.  The CEO said, “but I thought it was a pre-hiring interview?’  She said, “yes, I thought so, too.”  She never heard from the company again.  It was a bitter disappointment that hurt for many months.  Now, however, she sees that she would never have met and married her husband, had she been given the job in Denver.  She was redirected for a powerful reason.

As to a friend who suddenly cut you off, let’s put it in perspective and then give thanks.  Recently, a client was suddenly dropped as a friend because she declined a vacuum cleaner demonstration.  That’s right.  She politely declined an emailed request, due to an extreme work schedule.  Also, she did not know the friend-of-a-friend-of a friend that she would be helping by giving 2 hours for a demonstration of a product she could not afford.  The inviter then sent an attack email, assaulting the client’s integrity and spirituality.  The client called the inviter’s wife to ask if she felt the same way.  The wife said she would call back.  Immediately the inviter emailed the client again, nastily saying she must not go behind his back to talk to his wife, and best she not contact either of them again.  Did the client really want to be friends with people who would go ballistic over small matters?  Reconsidering a number of past hints of the nature of these “friends”, the client sadly let these friendships go.  Since, she has come to be glad they are no longer in her life.  Now she has more time for more compatible friends.  She was redirected for powerful reasons.

If you are a person of faith, remember this timeless truth [Romans 8:28]:  “We know that in all things, God works for the good of those who love him…”  When the flippers hit you, you are being directed for powerful purposes, by a wisdom greater than our own.  Do your best to deal with the hurt.  Then embrace the new opportunities that are arriving.  Be the happy and grateful pinball.

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● Your comments are welcome!

 

● Reach the writer at kebba@kebba.com .

UpBeat Living: Grace in Grief

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energy, Feeling energized, Grief, healing, social satisfaction, stress, Stress Management, stress tips

© 2012  Kebba Buckley Button, MS, OM. World Rights Reserved.

Photo by Kebba Buckley Button

This week brought news of the deaths of three longtime friends.  The comments flying back and forth in email brought back vivid memories of the friends, together with great stories that were new to me, shared by others. It was hard to create short newsletter blurbs about how these friends would be missed.  Everything I wrote brought to mind more ways the departed had shared their love, their laughter, and their creative gifts.

Grief hurts, grief takes its own time, and grief takes so many forms.  The late psychiatrist Dr. Elisabeth Kübler-Ross evolved a model of five stages of grief: denial, anger, bargaining, depression, and acceptance.  A few people seem to be able to shrug and directly accept that a loved one has ceased to be with us.  Some grieve for years, appearing to be in perpetual sadness.  Occasionally, this takes the form of leaving the deceased person’s belongings untouched, as though the person is still present but out of the room.  England’s Queen Victoria so passionately loved Prince Albert that, upon his death, all household members were required to wear black—until Victoria’s death.  The Queen apparently was uninterested in moving from depression to acceptance.

More commonly, many people feel alternating waves of memories, sadness, and loss.  Many have trouble concentrating on anything but the departed and their loss.  Some get physical symptoms such as fatigue, chest pain, and shortness of breath.  Some pray.  Some seek counseling.  Some spend time alone.  Some get irritable because they are stuffing their feelings. But the goal is to move through the discomforts and, on your own schedule, get to the fifth stage, acceptance.

Can you help yourself move through grief faster?  Of course, counseling can help.  Fortunately, there are also some things you can do without a professional, to shorten your grief process.  These are seven top choices.

–          Journal.  Find a quiet time and place to start writing down your memories of the loved one and the times you shared together.  Be sure to include detailing the best things you will remember about this person.  How did they inspire you?  Forget any conflicts you had and focus solely on the good.

–          Write them a letter.  Write to the loved one as though they have been transferred.  Share all your best memories, and tell them you miss them.  Notice how much lighter you feel.

–          Go to the service.  Stay for the cookies and punch.  If there is a funeral, a mass, a memorial service, or a memories lunch, go.  Don’t worry if you are not from the same faith tradition.  Follow the cues of those leading the service, and you will be fine.  The officiant and the family are expecting people of all backgrounds.  Feel your feelings, cry your tears, and share your memories with the other loved ones there.  Introduce yourself to the family members and tell them you are so sorry for their loss.  Tell them what a great friend the loved one was, and that you are grateful to have had many years of friendship.

–          Write in the online memory book and Facebook.  The funeral home will have an online memory book, and your fond memories will be a great gift to the family.  Send a note if there is no online memory book.  Post on Facebook.  While the person’s account will disappear as soon as Facebook knows they are deceased, you and your friends can share online.

–          Give something in their memory.  According to your budget, endow a chair at a university, start a foundation, create a cookie and name it after them.  Give a personalized brick for that newly restored theater.  Volunteer a few hours at their favorite soup kitchen or food bank.

–          Share your photos.  The family may never have seen those shots you took of your friend beaming at you on the hiking trail.  Email the photos to the family, church, or funeral home, with notes on who else is in the frame and when and where it was taken.  These will be treasured for years.

–          Get your fresh air and exercise.  Your DHEA levels will have plummeted when you got the news your friend had died.  This is part of what makes mourners depressed and tired.  Easy hikes in beautiful areas, walks at the Botanical Garden, swimming at the lake, or yoga in your yard will all calm and restore you, as well as returning your DHEA levels to normal.

Everyone has lost loved ones, and each has handled it differently.  May your memories be strong and beautiful.  And may you move through your grief process, to the extent possible, with ease and grace.

–Comments welcome!–

Reach the author at: kebba@kebba.com

UpBeat Living: Beating Holiday Stress

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choices, energy foods, exhausted, fatigue, fulfilled, holiday stress, stress, stress tips

© 2011 Kebba Buckley Button.  World Rights Reserved.

In the USA, “The Holidays” broadly means the entire season from before Thanksgiving to after Christmas and New Year’s Day.  This season sweeps through Yule, Hanukkah, Kwanzaa, HumanLight, and Ramadan, with Boxing Day on December 26th. This year, The Holidays seemed to start before Halloween: I saw my first red- and green-labeled carton of eggnog around October 25.  In this country’s popular culture, The Holidays are supposed to be a happy, bustling time when people love to buy gifts, decorate seasonally, have large gatherings, play and sing seasonal music, and eat and drink copious quantities of rich and sweet foods.  Yet many feel mildly- to completely stressed during this time.  If you are one of those who get stressed, these tips are for you.

First, simplify.  It’s important to realize The Holiday Season now reaches over almost a 3-month period, so you need a strategy other than trying to ignore it.  What plan have you used for previous holiday seasons?  Write down everything you usually expect from yourself, such as:  buy seasonal candy, put it in seasonal candy dishes in home and office, buy cards and mail, buy gifts for 10 relatives and take or ship, attend 4 parties with special appetizers you made, attend 2 holiday concerts or dance performances, attend 2 on-holiday family dinners, take the kids for a carriage ride around Kierland or Central Park, take holiday photos, post all those activities on FaceBook, feed the homeless at St. Vincent de Paul on Christmas Day, buy larger pants in New Year’s sales.  Whew!  Did you feel energized, or did you feel tired and worn after reading this list?  Now that you have written it all down, try cutting those expectations and events by half.  Now order the gifts and have them shipped.  Use a card service to get the cards out, or email your good wishes, or skip the cards altogether this year.  Take the photos with your phone or your kid’s phone, and post them and your holiday wishes on FaceBook.

Second, take timeouts.  Even if you cut your expectations of yourself, there is a lot of busy activity around you, wherever you go.  It’s a very stimulating time of year, and now it’s a quarter of the year.  It’s like the anti-vacation.  So you need microvacations to see you through.  Take quiet moments in a still area of your home.  Exhale and drop your shoulders, imagining quiet energy moving from your head down to your toes; picture your cells holding onto that quiet.  If you enjoy praying or meditating, take time for those regularly, giving them your full attention.  If you like to read fiction, take two hours at a time to get totally involved in a good novel.  Practice totally letting go of the hustle and bustle around you.

Third, give your body extra support.   Drink extra water between holiday beverages.  Eat fresh fruit, vegetables, and lean protein whenever you have the option; these will strengthen you between sweet and rich holiday meals.  Add ginger to your chicken soup to counter the effects of sugar.  If you can nap, take naps.  Different lengths of naps work for different people, but research has shown that naps as short as 20 minutes can totally refresh you.  Create time to walk, hike, or work out, to flush the toxins and clear your mind.

Fourth, enjoy what nurtures you.  Whatever there is about The Holidays that fills you, uplifts you, or restores you, keep those pieces.  If spending a day with Grandma makes you feel great, be sure to spend a day with Grandma.  If Skyping with your niece or grandchild leaves you joyful all day, make time to be fully present for that.  If walking alone in the snow, or attending Midnight Mass, or journaling, or practicing your guitar, leaves you feeling calm and happy, make those priorities.

Take these tips to heart, and you will beat stress during The Holidays.  Remember, it’s your life, and you are always at choice.  Will you choose to take care of yourself during this season?  It’s up to you.

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Reach the writer at kebba@kebba.com.