Something by Susie

What’s the best piece of advice you’ve ever received?

 To take or not to take, that’s how all advice is given. Over the years I have many bits of advice, some good, some bad, some that falls into a category of its own under… WTF!

I want to share the advice that I apply to everything; it was given by Tony Robbins at one of his events.  Quite simply it’s how we ‘choose’ to deal with everything that happens around us.  There are only ever two choices with how we deal with something, positively or negatively. There absolutely no other options. 

Option 1: We can hear and react to something negatively, by being angry, sad, enraged, fed up, depressed, miffed, perplexed, resisting, animosity, hostility, opposition…. the list is quite clearly never ending, but all of them are summed up under the general rule of ‘negative reactions.  They also don’t help anyone in moving on, lessening the stress nor finding a positive solution, as we sit in that negativity for a while.

Option 2: We can hear and react to something positively, by being happy, amused, gratitude, content, confident, calm, satisfied, excitement, delight, hope, love, inspired, joy, pride, interest, awe, elevation, serenity, I believe all these emotions foster personal growth and promote well-being.  These are emotions I would prefer to experience.

Yes of course, there are horrendous times when they are overshadowed by negativity, but even here we have a choice, spiral down and get sucked into it or raise ourselves up.  Easier said than done I hear you say.  Well, I never said it was easy, I just said it was a choice, and sometimes it’s a difficult one, that is hard to achieve.

Recently my father passed away.  He was in hospital and during the last few days he was placed on to palliative care.  We fought hard to get him home so that he could die at home where he wanted to, but it was just not possible, he would not even survive the transfer, and no one would want to die in an ambulance stuck in traffic.  So, my brother and I chose to make the best of plan B.  He was already in a side room of his own, so we made it his. We put pictures up, brought a dimmable light, we played a usb stick filled with over 2000 pictures taken throughout his life on the tv screen.  We played the sounds of the birds in his garden, that he sat and fed daily. We played positive messages with upbeat news from friends and family. We laughed we joked, the underlying sadness was always there, but we chose to push it down and shoot for the stars.  He ate two puddings for tea, McDonalds thick shake for breakfast, and we laughed about it.  We brought bags and bags of sweets in for the ward staff, to thank them for their care.  They allowed us to bring my dads dog in to see him one last time, so that he could say goodbye to her.

On the day that he passed away, there were no monitors beeping, just the sound of birds, with pictures of family and friends, so that every time he opened his eyes he saw someone he knew, and he’d smile or tell us something from a long-ago memory. That day every single one of his nursing staff over the last 10 days came in to say goodbye, to give his arm a rub, one even kissed him on the head.  They were so moved by this gentleman’s spirit, that they wanted to honour it with their words and time. 

When he passed away there was just his two children holding his hand, telling him it was ok for him to go, no need to hold on any longer, we’ll look after each other, and we will be ok. He passed quietly to the sounds of his back garden, knowing he was loved.

We chose the positive version of absolutely everything, so that we could share in the peace that surrounded it.

My father passed away on Saturday 13^th September, and I am truly joyful at all the happy memories I shared with him, even when the times were hard!  I choose the happiness in life’s lessons.