Act Your Way into a Feeling

Today is the one-year anniversary of the passing of my mother, so I've been doing a lot of reflecting about her life and death. She had a very fast-moving, progressive form of dementia that you wouldn't wish on your worst enemy. Towards the end of her life, I would go to visit her daily and leave feeling like the world was coming to an end. But I had a family to take care of and a business to run, so I needed to find a way to carry on. I somehow connected with this song, One Eskimo's "Amazing" and would listen to it several times while in my car on my way to wherever I was going next. This song helped me feel like life and all of its gifts are AMAZING. I know it's pretty cliche, but if you don't feel like doing a victory lap at the end of this song, better check your pulse to make sure you're alive.

The other coping mechanism I had was to wear yellow. I'm Asian and yellow looks really bad with my skin coloring, but at the time, I felt like it made me look more happy and really outgoing which was the opposite of where I was at. I later took a design class with the guest speaker being a psychologist who specializes in color therapy--she confirmed that this is actually an effective technique.

I know that these are certainly not life-altering techniques for someone who is battling a tragedy, but sometimes it's the little things or more the effort to make small changes that can make a big difference.