Lessons

I had my nephews over for the day yesterday, which is always a fun time.  We spent some time at the park/playground in the afternoon.  It was about -10C and there is a lot of snow around, so the playground equipment was slippery.  My three-year old nephew loves to climb things, pretty much any time, anywhere and yesterday was no exception.  Climbing in boots and snow pants is not as easy as climbing in the summer though.  He was determined and made it up many a climbing structure. He did some slipping around and fell a number of times, none of which phased him.

At one point he was climbing and slipped and fell quite a distance, at least for him.  He hit the ground, took a second and then stood up, looked at me and said, "Auntie, I didn't make it."  He then ran off to climb something else.  The only time he fussed the whole time was when he bashed his nose into his brother's back, and then a kiss from me was all it took.

My five-year old nephew had surgery on his knee in November.  After nearly six weeks of not putting any weight on it, he has been walking again for just over two.  He is limping still, and it is evident at times that his leg is tired.  At the playground he was running around and climbing things along with his brother.  He slipped and fell a number of times also.  Nearly every time he fell down he started laughing, finding the whole thing hilarious.  He made it up a number of structure also.  The only time he fussed was when he was wrestling with his brother and his bad knee got bent faster than he was used to.  This hurt for a bit.  Then, as soon as he was able, he was up and running and climbing again.

These lovely creatures showed me some great lessons yesterday.  The first is that it is okay if something doesn't work out the way you want it to.  You can get up, say "I didn't make it", and then be off on the next adventure, leaving the thing that didn't work out behind.  Sometimes there are lessons to take along, sometimes it is just better to know that you tried your best and move on.

It is okay also to admit when something hurts you, and take the time to heal the hurt.  Take time to rest and let the hurt heal (be it emotional, spiritual, physical etc...).  Once the pain is bearable, you get up and move on to the next thing because life is too interesting to stay where you are.

And now the link to mental health.  I think both of the lessons shown to me by my nephews yesterday are important to remember to cultivate mental health.  Too often I have spent time berating myself because something didn't work out as planned.  Too often, especially in the midst of depression, I was unable to find a way to heal the hurt and to move past it, nor was I able to find life interesting.  Remembering to let myself be human, to feel things, to succeed, to fail, to leave things behind, to heal and to be curious is the greatest gift I have and will continue to give myself.