Who am I?

How often, in the course of the everyday things we do as adults, do we stop and ask ourselves who we are and what we stand for? Over the past week, with Passover and Easter having beren celebrated, we all had the opportunity to stop and look around and take a moment to reflect. This morning in the park, Lucy and I encountered mountains of trash from people who celebrated Sunday in the park, and the leftovers of their food and games and revelry was evident, but in the quiet of the morning, I wondered how many of them took the time to discuss among themselves, or explain to their children who they really are and what they really believe in.
Bob talked about the difficulties of learning the prayers that his school required of him, when there was no follow through at home. He really had no idea why he was riding his bike long distances to learn something that seemed so unimportant to his parents. As a girl, I wondered why I did not get to learn the things that seemed so important to my parents. With so much information available to our children, and grandchildren on the internet, I wonder if we adults still manage to remain a mystery to them.  We require things of them, often hard and time consuming things, and we think it is self evident why they should acquire this knowledge, or behave this way, while it is really not so until a much later time.
This time of year, Spring, when newness is evident all around us, is for me a time of rememberance.  Both my parents died and three of my grandparents, in this season.  But I remember fondly what they taught me, even if I was puzzled at the time I was required to learn it. So as I prepared for the holiday, I thought about the people who taught me to be who I am, and how much love and caring was involved in that, and whether I am worthy of all they did for me.  I thought of all of the trials of immigration that my grandparents underwent, and the difficulties of being first generation American born and poor that my parents experienced, and then I thought of the ease of my life, the luck and the love that created who I have become, and I was greatly awed by all that contributed to who I am. While I am far from perfect, I am perfectly grateful to be me.

Finding the positive

It's been too long since I posted, but there have been no end of difficult happenings in my family lately, and I have been bogged down in the negativity.  But I have to keep remembering that a few weeks ago, I had the opportunity to substitute for a friend as the facilitator for an Alzheimer's Support Group, that is, a group of people who are dealing with Alzheimer's as caregivers and relatives of people with the condition.  I was not there as an Appreciative Inquiry Coach, but as a former member of the group. So I am aware that the process of losing a loved one to this disease is a wrenching heartbreak, because long before death takes the body, the disease takes the mind and memory.  After spending most of the meeting in the business of support, I asked the group if they would mind doing something different in the final 15 minutes of the meeting.  They agreed and I put on my Appreciative Inquiry hat.  I asked the group to think for a moment, if they could, of anything at all good that had happend as a result of where they found themselves right now.
Knowing that this was asking a great deal in the face of dealing with the devastation that can come as a result of a loved one having dementia, I waited to see what would happen.  I was deeply gratified to see that as we went from person to person around the table, each, with only one exception, was able to find one thing that they would term positive.  One man said he had deepend his relationship with his children, one woman said that when her husband had lucid moments, he was able to tell her he loved her, others said that they had learned to take better care of themselves, and so on.  Thirty people were able to find something positive in their lives with Alzheimers. We ended the meeting on a positive note, and almost everyone left with a smile. 
I have been bogged down by the difficulties in my life lately, illness in the family, deaths, surgeries, job losses, and other unpleasant happenings.  And so I have been away from my work as an AI coach, away from the daily dealing with the positive, and finding what is working and using it to make the future better. This morning, I had to remind myself, that Life is Good, and that there are rays of light even in difficult circumstances, and possibility abounds. We just have to be open to it.
Remembering my favorite quote from Marcel Proust, " The Voyage of Discovery lies not in seeing new vistas, but in having new eyes," I searched for the positive and found something magical that inspired me. Even in the darkest times, there might be a glint of the good, and you might again get in touch with the positive. You only have to look.