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When I was growing up, my siblings and I went to my maternal grandparents every summer for several weeks. They lived in Bridge City, Texas. We were a bit too much for my grandmother to handle so the majority of days, we were handed over to my Grandad. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
After he retired from the refinery, he went to\nwork with his brother, my great uncle Rob, down at the fish camp. He would take\nus on down to the lake, and he pretty much let us run wild. There were hard and\nfast rules that we knew we couldn\u2019t break, which all these years later were\nrules to making sure we didn\u2019t hurt ourselves or each other. But otherwise we\npretty much lived a dream of fishing and crabbing and playing in the water and \u201chelping\nout.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
At least once, Granny would come down and we would go out in a boat to swim in the intercoastal waterway. I remember being scared one of those first times cause I couldn\u2019t touch the bottom with my toes. Grandad said, of course, I could touch the bottom. But the perspective of the where the bottom had definitely changed.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
I\u2019ve been thinking about his take on perspective a lot lately. It\u2019s perspectives that help us understand and empathize and sympathize with those around us. It\u2019s perspective that helps us be kind and offer grace. It\u2019s perspective that also helps us to get through the day as we parse the things we need to do and want to do.<\/a> <\/p>\n\n\n\n We are at varying parts of our terms: from\njust started to week four or so. But no matter where you fall in the range, we\ncan always use a dose of perspective. Cause for those of us who started a few\nweeks ago, this point in is probably telling us that our perfectly laid plans\nfor the term\u2014no matter how hard we worked at it\u2014have some problems. Or if\nyou\u2019re just starting, you\u2019re trying to make peace with the fact that you didn\u2019t\nget everything done you wanted to. If you\u2019re somewhere in between, you\u2019re\nprobably vascillating between, \u201cI am so on top of things,\u201d to \u201chow did this go\nwrong so fast?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n It\u2019s good to remind ourselves that there is a\nbottom and you can feel it with your toes. But sometimes that reminder is hard.\nSo here are a few tips to help:<\/p>\n\n\n\n Often times it\u2019s so helpful to just talk\nthrough life. This is also good because your choices and decisions can be\naffirmed and discussed. The process of opening ourselves up and being\nvulnerable and transparent with someone often gives us a new perspective in\nreturn. <\/p>\n\n\n\n For me the next step after talking things\nthrough is making the time to really reflect on what it is that is bothering me\nor happening or needs to be done. Reflecting allows the opportunity to try to\nget at the heart at what may be wrong and how to shift our reaction\u2014our perspective\u2014to\nit. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Either move yourself or physically move things\nabout typically helps in seeing things differently. The physical, material\nmovement of things can shift a perspective just enough for you to make progress\nor at the least to know how to make progress. <\/p>\n\n\n\n There\u2019s way too much going on around us (in\nthe world and in our immediate lives) to focus on everything at once. Sometimes\nit is useful to narrow the focus to those things that you can control. Shifting\nperspectives in this way helps us regain our power and move past things that\ncan paralyze us into inaction. <\/p>\n\n\n\n The takeaway of the blog post from last month is that you need to be easy on yourself. Removing this added stress often can open up space for you to think more freely about things you may need or want to change.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Whether it\u2019s the snowball effect<\/a> or just life, it\u2019s not uncommon for us to go back and forth from feeling overwhelmed<\/a> to needing to regain our balance<\/a>. This job is hard. It has a number of competing demands and we consistently have to figure out how to balance this job with our lives and interests. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Anytime I start to panic, I try to remember Grandad\u2019s advice that I could indeed touch the bottom. It\u2019s all in shifting your perspective. Good luck, and know that you are never alone. (link to reach out)<\/p>\n\n\n\n Wishing you health, peace, and joy.<\/p>\n\n\n\n 3 February 2019 by Lisa Melon\u00e7on When I was growing up, my siblings and I went to my maternal grandparents every summer for several weeks. They lived in Bridge City, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[],"post_mailing_queue_ids":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/womenintechcomm.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/739"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/womenintechcomm.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/womenintechcomm.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/womenintechcomm.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/womenintechcomm.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=739"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/womenintechcomm.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/739\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":748,"href":"https:\/\/womenintechcomm.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/739\/revisions\/748"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/womenintechcomm.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=739"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/womenintechcomm.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=739"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/womenintechcomm.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=739"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}![\"\"](\"http:\/\/womenintechcomm.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/02\/glass-refillable.jpg\")
<\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\nFind someone to listen<\/h4>\n\n\n\n
Quiet reflection<\/h4>\n\n\n\n
Move things about<\/h4>\n\n\n\n
![\"\"](\"http:\/\/womenintechcomm.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/02\/69-600x546.jpg\")
<\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\nFocus on the things you can control<\/a><\/h4>\n\n\n\n
Be easy on yourself<\/a><\/h4>\n\n\n\n
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<\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n
<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"