Do You Live a Blissful Life?

This past Saturday our family decided that our weekend adventure would be to go paddle boarding. Let me start by saying that I knew this would be a challenge for all of us and especially my 60 yeard old mother. For any of you that don’t know the story of my mother, she is a beautiful earth angel and one of the most beautiful souls that walks this earth. She is kind, loving, accepting of everyone and people who meet her fall in love with her at first sight.

She is what my girls and I call a specialty, a rarity, and we call her Blissful. She was raised on the farm back in Alabama and because of her health issues mainly anxiety and learning disabilities she never learned to drive or do a lot of things for that matter. Her world has been limited...until she is with me and I show her what this beautiful world has to offer her. She is rare in that she lives without being hesitant, has no care for what the world thinks or should I say clue of what others are thinking of her or her actions as she literally thinks everyone is like she is or that they just don’t know better. This woman never meets a stranger as she acts like she has know you her whole life. She loves to dance and she just moves her body which doesn’t exactly follow any musical rythm, but the fact of the matter is that myself and others who watch her wish we could blissfully live life like she does. What would embarras us to do she does without a care in the world.

This weekend she had a really hard time understanding the rules of paddle boarding as her anxiety was so extremely high. Why, you ask? She has not learned how to swim (yes, she wore a life jacket), we are in Florida so she kept thinking that since we were in brackish water that there was a possiblilty of alligators being in there, the water was over 20 feet deep, and boats were coming and going all around us. She persevered and when she got to shore she was smiling and proud of herself. She kept asking my husband and I did she mess up and I told her that there really was no way to mess up, but only a learning opportunity at trying something new. We discussed how she could never grow unless she pushed herself and got out of her comfort zone. She is still talking about how she felt like even though she wasn’t the best paddle boarder that she feels she conquered it. As we talk her on adventures with our family, I can see her self-confidence grow. She has never really made her own decisions, but I refuse to make decisions for her as long as she can as I am not enabling her to stay in her comfort zone.

Life is too short not to enjoy it and live it to the fullest. When we don’ t have any noise in our head, then we can truly live blissfully. My mother is a beautiful example of this and I thank God that he gave her to me as a daily reminder of how to live and love. My goal is to strive daily to be like my mom. My wish for all of you reading this is that you too can find a way to live life out loud like she does so that you can find your bliss. Don’t limit your possibilties and the person you were meant to become. Be uniquely you and enjoy this life and what this world has to offer. Remember leaders go first...when we are blissfully living we indirectly give others permission to do the same. Someone is waiting on you to show up.