So, my friend Christian Guerin (name changed again to keep it an alias, this was his choice. First he chose Jeff and then changed it LOL ) was having a tough time with his back over the past few months. It was so bad that just getting out of bed and taking a few steps was not doable. That mixed with COVID-19, job anxiety, family etc. etc., was putting him in a bad place.
How do you support from thousands of miles away?
I was trying to figure out how to lighten his load a bit. Not taking it upon myself but seeing what I could do with or for him that could help focus on something positive. I had no idea how it would also help me in the end.
I said to “Christian” one day, when he was feeling low. “I have an idea!”. LOL, you can only imagine, I’ve had crazy bright ideas before LOL. I said “OK, we are going to do a new thing that I think will make both of us feel better. Each day we are going to text 1 thing we are grateful for. We are going full out Oprah:
“Starting today and every day. We are going to text each other something that we are grateful for. No comments necessary, just one text when you first wake up. How about it?” He immediately replied, “sounds good”. To date we have exchanged over 80 gratitude texts. Some duplicate and some similar things that we were grateful for on the same day.
It’s one small, less than 5-minute Woment for me and as some men have told us, a Manment (I just added that word to my dictionary) for him. LOL.
We are to the point, that after doing the following every day since October 11th, that if one of us forgets the other picks up the slack. I really don’t think we’ve missed a day.
I feel different because of these small exchanges. No matter what mood I’m in or what I have planned for the day, taking a Woment to be grateful for something, anything, like coffee, or a pillow, has changed how I start the day. Not on a negative, but on a positive thought. Some days, I’m not going to lie, it’s been hard to see something positive. But inevitably one of us pulls it out and forces the other to see one positive thing today.
In hindsight, it’s a great gift I’ve given to myself and that my friend “Christian” has given to me by saying “yes” to the idea.
So, grab a buddy, maybe it’s a friend, your husband, your child and commit not to just being Thankful and Grateful one day a year, but every day, every morning. You will be pleasantly surprised.
FULL ON OPRAH WOMENT!
