This weekend I had the fun of celebrating my youngest sister’s 30th birthday. You may have seen her on our site here… she also happens to be my bookkeeper!
She has had an incredible year of being diagnosed with breast cancer, an intensive round of Chemo Therapy, 2 rounds of Radiation as well as a surgery mixed in. This has entailed countless hours of traveling to a hospital up here in Portland (that is about a 4.5 hour drive one way for them), lots of doctors appointments and days of being totally and utterly exhausted from it all.
Not only is she coming through with flying colors both she and her hubby are inspirations to the rest of us on how to deal with adversity and and keep an incredibly positive outlook on life and what it is throwing at her.
It has been a complete and utter wake up call for the rest of us on how precious life is and knowing when to slow down, take a break and enjoy the moment. It has been also a call to faith, entrusting her to God and His loving care. We know that there are lessons to be learned through this journey and doing our best to be open to them and take them to heart.
For me it is to realize that I do not take enough time off, that I am not giving time to me and my family to rest, rejuvenate and refill instead of always going, going, going. An echo of this years theme of simplifying.
So one of the things I will be sharing throughout the rest of the year is to show examples of slowing down, even if for just a few minutes to enjoy the sunny day, walk the dog, listen to beautiful music or my favorite… walking on the beach.
As entrepreneurs we usually are work-a-holics and are in desperate need of an intervention… and I don’t mean this as a flippant use of words. We go and go and go trying to get it all done wondering where the day, week and month went all while trying to keep our head above water as we run our business(es). Many times this does require a hard knock on the head, a good shake to bring us into awareness of today and has to be done and what can wait.
It is also learning to work through the fear of… what if I can’t get it all done? I must do it all myself to make sure it gets done right. It is a fear of letting go in order to move ahead.
So I invite you to take this journey with me of learning to set boundaries, or at the very least enforce the ones already in place!! Enjoy today, take a deep breath and celebrate life!
I’ll be posting a few pictures soon of “Aimeepalooza” with roasted pig, tiki lights, leis and live music! Plus tent city as we converged on her home, what a blast!
