I hope this blog post finds you how you are. I’d like to say I hope it finds you well, and honestly I do, but more importantly, I hope it finds you being you.
Instead, in the spirit of Brené Brown, I’m going to get vulnerable here because I think we are all feeling a bit vulnerable right now. About our health, about our jobs, about our investments, about our day to day finances. About what to do about _____. Fill in the blank.
My vulnerability story is about some unexpected therapy I received recently in an animated movie my wife, Lauren, and I watched and in a book we are both reading.
The exact same message came through, loud and clear, from two completely different and unexpected sources. An eyes wide open, Universe level, this is God speaking kind of message.
Picture It…
A couple of Saturdays ago, Lauren and I decided to watch Frozen 2 on Disney+.
I saw the first Frozen movie years ago and didn’t remember much about it – thanks Olaf, for the in-movie recap – but I did know that, like most animated Disney films, it is a musical.
A little over an hour in, we reached the movie’s pivotal moment. Elsa was literally frozen in time, as were many other characters from the past – water has a memory, after all – and it was time for movie’s real hero, Anna, to shine.
At the moment Anna decided to run into the frozen abyss to save her sister she belted out in song, 🎵 “Do the Next Right Thing!” 🎵, Lauren and I immediately became teary eyed and choked up. Then we looked at each other and laughed hysterically because we were having the very same cathartic experience.
It wasn’t about the movie, exactly, but it tied into a recent unexpected and painful shared experience, and the question we have both been asking ourselves and each other lately.
What do we do now?
It’s a question many of are asking now in the face of uncertainty and fear about our personal health, the health and wellness of our family and friends, concerns about the economy and our own financial security.
Déjà vu
Anna’s mantra, “Do the next right thing,” came up again in a book Lauren and I are both reading.
In the book, Untamed , author Glennon Doyle describes how, through deep introspection and lots of times spent sitting quietly on her closet floor, she learned to listen to her innermost wisdom, to commune with God, essentially, to make right decisions about her life.
She learned, and explained, how she has come to know the right move to make by listening to her innermost voice and having faith in herself to “do the next right thing.”
If you sit still long enough and listen closely, you, too, can feel and figure out the next right thing to do.
We all have our “things”
Now, back to our question about what to do now.
Not only are Lauren and I experiencing the anxieties and uncertainties that come along with living through our first global pandemic, but – and this is where I get really vulnerable – we also experienced a failed adoption just 4 weeks ago.
If you don’t know what a failed adoption is, it’s when you plan to adopt and then you don’t get to.
To summarize our experience, we drove to Florida on a Monday, expecting our future son to be born on Wednesday, which he was, but the agency called us on Tuesday to say the birth mom had changed her mind.
She decided she was keeping the baby. The baby we had a shower for, decorated a nursery for, and have a million clothes and diapers for behind that closed nursery door. The baby we chose a name for, spent a butt load of money on for the (failed) adoption, who we expected to raise as our own.
She decided to keep that baby. No longer our baby.
Do the next right thing
In a situation like this, it’s hard to know what to do next.
How to feel is easy – angry, sad, confused, disappointed, rejected…the whole range of negative emotions. Accepting and sitting with those emotions is a little more difficult, but something we are learning to do.
Right now, doing the next right thing means grieving, therapy sessions, talking to each other, regrouping, and eventually deciding what to do next about adoption.
Sometimes when bad things happen, “feel better soon” is not the best advice, even though it may seem like the right sentiment.
In our case, “Feel how you feel and work through it so you can come out whole on the other side” holds up better.
These are difficult times we are all experiencing together right now with the COVID-19 pandemic. We are learning to communicate differently and how to be together while being apart.
Zoom calls are no longer just for business. They are for video chatting with family and friends.
We can’t be with each other physically, but we can all be together and united in this shared experience.
Be Still and Know
My hope for you is that you find this message on your way to being well if you’re not there yet. My hope is that you and your family are safe and healthy and free from anxiety.
I hope that you are finding new outlets for your time and creative energy, that you aren’t watching too much news and inundating yourself with all of the latest grim statistics, and that you are washing your hands, not touching your face, and #socialdistancing in public.
In short, that you’re doing the next right thing you know how to do, even if that’s just taking the step that’s right in front of you.
Please take care of yourself and your loved ones, and allow them to take care of you.
Thanks for spending a few minutes with my words, and be well my friends!
I’m here for you.
Its Jimmy On... 