The image remains clear in my mind today.

I was a videographer recording footage for a sales presentation for a company that runs long-term care facilities, for severe and profoundly handicapped children. The kids and their helpers were in a gymnasium, standing in a circle – and each one had a grip on the edge of a small parachute.

“Up!”

Their arms went to raise the parachute as they watched it billow into a dome, and then gradually float back down to the floor when they dropped their arms. Up and down. They laughed and giggled with delight.

Sometimes, a worker would take a child with them into the center of the parachute just as it was starting to billow. Then, before it deflated, they would rush back out! Such fun!

As a caregiver, I felt like that parachute had settled down on top of me and my loved one. We could not get out. There were no giggles.

We all experience situations when we feel like we are living under that deflated parachute with no way out.

There was a phase when I privately punched and railed at that parachute, as it limited – not only my physical space – but also my view of the future.

Punch. Punch. Punch.

Then I realized there was a choice to make.

I could keep fighting to get a beautiful open sky of possibilities above me, or I could look more intently at my new world – under the parachute – to discover the depth and wonders of what was at arm’s length.

Grab a magnifying glass and study the shape, size, texture and design of a leaf or a flower. There are worlds smaller than that under the surface you are studying!

Just because we are denied the vastness of a journey to … anywhere … does not mean there is not an equally large world available to us close by.

While the patisseries in Europe may miss seeing you this year, you can learn more about baking that luscious treat yourself at home.

If that hamster cage is getting smaller and smaller as you run your daily course, make sure to value and celebrate yourself – even during the briefest of respites.

Life, I believe, is a mind game from within that requires great control over our daily actions and responses.

Life under the parachute, especially, demands an awareness of possibilities and mindsets which, in turn, requires daily, hourly, or moment-by-moment resets in thinking – to avoid the slippery slope of despair.

When my thinking was right, I learned to stop punching, and began to stretch and move more gracefully under that parachute.

A quote by William James came my way today that may inspire you:

“Acceptance of what has happened is the first step to overcoming the consequences of misfortune.”

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In health –

Deidre