Looking for the Perfect

 

[caption id="attachment_4685" align="alignleft" width="225" caption="Ben and Lotta snuggle at the end of the slide. Perfection."][/caption]

In a recent article by Martha Beck (a life coach who often writes in Oprah Magazine), she described how she was running a training of coaches.  The conclusion of the training was to be an adventure involving horses.  Right as they arrived at the horse stables, the sky dumped a torrent of rain.  Martha asked each participant what was perfect about the situation.

I have been practicing looking for the perfect in each situation (when I am not too crazy to recall this wonderful tidbit).  Whenever I find myself becoming disappointed, frustrated, angry, if I am able, I stop and ponder what is perfect.  It totally forces me to re-focus my attention, to look for what I like rather than what I don't.  For example, this morning, Lotta and I were meeting our favorite PICU nurse, Katie and her baby, Cash at the zoo.  Somehow we just could not find one another.  I found myself begining to panic a little bit, knowing that our window at the zoo with 2 little people who will need naps soon was small.  Then, I just decided to relax and enjoy the weather (it is a perfect day today).   When we kept missing eachother, I even texted her a photo of Lotta and I to show her what we looked like.  I thought afterwards how fantastic it was to not go into full panic mode, to just relax and see whatever animals we happened to see.  Even though we did not get to visit with Katie and Cash as long as we had anticipated, we had a lovely visit the time we did have together.  Hope this doesn't sound trite or overused ("when life hands you lemons make lemonade!!")  Just wanted to share how helpful this has been in the hopes that it might be helpful to some of you too.