I am learning to cultivate enthusiasm with the help of the second book on my list. I am learning a host of other things to go with it, but I want to bring forward how delight for the small stuff contributes to general happiness, contentment with things as they are. Please don't confuse enthusiasm with acceptance because of what I am about to say. The two positions don't relate in this model.
Acceptance says, merely, "Yes." Enthusiasm leaves an thumbprint, a feeling, "Yes!" that needs no voice.
I've experienced enthusiasm enough to know what it feels like. Is there a way I can feel it ...most of the time? Yes!
In this book of several steps aimed at parents of children with special needs I am absorbing the importance of a slower pace, of varying procedure, of employing subtlety, finesse, creating much more flexible goals, and actively noticing neat things that contribute to my enthusiasm.
This is not a new concept in my bloodline. "Find the Good." is a family phrase we often tease each other with, but we do mean it and we do try to see silver linings even in the midst of anxiety and chaos. ...but enthusiasm differs from finding the good.
Bolstering enthusiasm is not a means to an end (or a safe place) like "Find the Good" can be. Enthusiasm is the feeling that remains one moment into the next because I have noticed good. I have not found good. I have noticed it - and I haven't got to spark a doob or drop a tab to notice.
Think of the how we notice and think of how we find. Doesn't noticing feel more gentle?
So when I gently notice things like.... well, I'll share my list of "neat things I notice" from two days ago:
Sheldon loves to cuddle with me in the morning.
I like making Hopper breakfast.
Hopper answered her phone this morning - she even lingered to talk and joke a tiny bit before hanging up on me (I gave her permission to because I snuck in a pretty horrible pun.)
Both my husband and my BFE were interested to know what I planned to do today.
April is back. (She is someone in my community who makes me smile, she just returned from a month's hiatus.)
Frank is really nice. He told me about coming to America after fleeing his communist country of Vietnam. Really interesting. It took him jail time, torture and a number of years to be free but he kept on.
Found out Joshua Radin is performing tonight with A Fine Frenzy!!! <3
It was easy to say when I'm going on vacation and won't be available to work.
There have been more things since...all these situational smiles that pile into the day which I could, and often do, forget about by the time I go to sleep at night, but because I noticed them and took a moment to enjoy them, and write them down, I've given myself the opportunity to feel that soft, internal, "Yes!" with each and every one.
This may look like a list of things I'm grateful for. It's not. It's just a collection of neat things I notice. Again, do you feel the difference? I am....so in love with having learned this. It is going to take a heck of a lot of practice for this kind of noticing to become natural for me to do. So be it. :)
