Down in the Mouth...and up again.

(I have no idea where that expression comes from...but it sounds about right.)

I've had a discouraging patch. You probably know what I mean...when the demands & stress of life feel so heavy you don't know how much longer you can keep it up. And you wonder about the meaning of it all, doubt yourself a lot. A general funk. Or, as I put it to Mike earlier this week, "Life is kind of kicking our butts, isn't it?"

HOWEVER. The cool thing about life is...if you just keep trying, after a while (sometimes a long while) somehow things look brighter, you get stronger, you get smarter, you get more fearless, you get more grateful. And then, AMAZINGLY - you are actually HAPPIER than before you had to struggle. (That is a dichotomy worth some thought.)

I went to the temple this week. I needed to. For the first time in months I had some real clarity. But then I went home and got all bogged-down again with life on earth - which included about 2 hours of sleep that night, and a gazillion demands the next day.
Luckily, I had a chance to go and be with some women in the neighborhood, eat and talk about the things we're grateful for. Listening to other people open up, talking about their own hurt and their own joy - it straightened me out.

Life is BEAUTIFUL.       All of it.
When your heart is soft and open.