"We are going to enjoy her."

An Easy Shift into Gratitude

Hello ♡,

It is great to be back with you after a summer break. Everyone is back in school and I am relocating my actual brain. I just know it was here before.

❤️A genuine heart open welcome to new subscribers, I am so glad you are here. I write more personally here than in other spaces, while still exploring the topics of humaning, therapy, and faith.

As I return to writing, I am thinking about a phrase that marked my summer break and our annual trip back to Spain, where my dad is from.

Many months ago I was on a phone call with my mom as I drove around the city. We were talking about my youngest child, and some of her hilarious, albeit on the playful line of mischievous, recent shenanigans. These were not actual behavioral issues, but they were hilarious. I said, joking to my mom, “what are we going to do with her?” She replied simply and confidently, “We are going to enjoy her.” And I thought to myself, yes, that is the perfect plan. This phrase - “we are going to enjoy her,” can be easily morphed into, “I am going to enjoy them, or this, or him.” But let me tell you what it means to me first, and we can make space to explore what I might mean for you.

So often I am in the mental category of bettering. Bettering this moment, this trip, this house, this career, and unfortunately even, this person. Can you relate? It is a striving to grow and improve that when over its guardrails can make actual enjoyment hard to hold.

I want to be clear, I am not talking here about dysfunctional patterns that need to be fixed, or relationships that need to be ended, or boundaries that need to be set. This is an entirely different conversation than that.

I am talking about a common tendency to see what lacks more than the good that is.

I am talking about hugging your son when you see him first, rather that pointing out his dirty socks on the floor in front of you. I am talking about loving all the things your friend IS in your life rather than the one thing she/he is not. I am talking about embracing the moment not in spite of its lack of perfection, but with it’s lack of perfection and all the things to enjoy that are also still there. I am talking about the odd idiosyncrasies we all have that, that although harmless, we can over-focus on and miss the enjoyment of a moment, an evening, or even a person or a relationship.

I’m often pondering how to apply the important practice of gratitude to my actual real life, and how to write about it. It is something I hear people wrestle with often - because practicing gratitude is undeniably right and good, but the applications falter and so does execution and benefit of it. I have found that when I have the question pop up about harmless things that may annoy me about a moment or even a person, and I wonder: “What am I going to do with them, this moment, this thing…” I find great relief in, “I am going to enjoy them.”

This shift puts me back into the guardrails of what I can control and what I cannot, what I can change, and what I cannot. It helps me focus less on perfecting a moment or a person, and more on simply enjoying them. Because, let’s be honest, many of us tend to “work on” things and those around us a little too much. Many of us also tend to assume our way of “working on” these people and things is the best way. I am not saying change isn’t important, I am saying for those of us that over-focus on “what could be” it is helpful to celebrate all “that is.” It is a relief, and an easy shift into gratitude that doesn’t bypass what is challenging for me, it just re-shuffles the priorities. I aim more to enjoy who I am with, what I am doing, and a moment, rather than focusing on how it could be different or better.

So, I am back to you, and back to writing, and here are some photos of enjoyment. Was the summer, the break, the trip perfect? Of course not. Did my husband break his toe and we had to adjust? Absolutely. Did we have disagreements and disappointments? Sure. But when I wondered “what am I going to do with this time?” I thought, “I am going to enjoy it.” In the spirit of enjoyment, here are some photos:

What, or who, might you enjoy today?

With you,

Monica