When I am feeling flattened by life, I use my emotional agility skills to rebound. But, sometimes I just want advice from a very wise, not giving a shit, 100 Year Old Grandma. So, I found one. Her name is Tilly. Here’s what she has to say. I’ve found it very beneficial, so I’m writing her answers in this blog.
Question for Tilly: It seemed we were going in a good direction towards kindness, compassion and generosity… widening for many years. Lots of people now have rights and privileges who never did before. Yet, now it seems those rights and privileges might be stripped away while the rich get richer and poor get poorer. What to do? How do I not stay angry/stuck in the face of it all?
Tilly: Your heart is good and that is the best treasure to have in your life. Please keep treasuring your golden heart because if you let anyone take that from you because of their greed and hate, then they’ve won. Obviously, we don’t need more greed and hate but we do need more golden hearts shining brightly. I would get stuck in fear many times in my early life- those first 70 years or so! I realized at the root, I was afraid someone would steal my ability to love or be joyful.
By the time I closed in on 80, I just stopped giving a shit about all the things I couldn’t personally change. I just stopped. I decided no one would take my joy or my ability to love because that was the best thing I could possibly give anyone, um well beside my award winning- blue in fact- cinnamon raisin cookies. So, I see the horrible things happening and your damn right I don’t stay silent. I call, write, visit who I can to make sure they know how I think it should go. Then, I go home and let myself be happy because I have so much to be happy about.
I didn’t personally feel the desire to be a protestor or politician or journalist for change. We need these people very much. Not all of us feel the calling to be out on the front lines. It doesn’t mean your impact or benefit is any less. I felt it was important to make sure everyone I knew got their beauty acknowledged, by me, as much as I could. I would always look for their soft spot of what they were uniquely amazing at in life and then tell them how very much I admired that. I noticed how it showed up in their life. My niece is very caring towards animals. She thought of it as just something she did, but I saw that she was able to connect with them in a special way. So, I admired her for that and connected with her about animals and let her tell me lovely stories and offer her wisdom. Her smile was never so bright as when she talked about those animals. So, go offer your unique gift and that’s all the world wants from you. Then, please be happy with yourself because we need that more than anything.