Meg Evans

Waking up on a sunny morning toward the end of winter, when the sun already is well above the horizon and the birds are singing cheerfully, leaves me feeling that the day has gotten off to a good start. Even if the outside air is still quite chilly, spring is not far away!

Of course, the birds will sing anyway, even if it is cloudy and rainy, because nobody ever told them that meant it was dreary. They’re just happy that it is nest-building season and the earth is bustling with new life. Those birds could teach us a useful lesson about starting the day on a good note!

Nurturing Thursday was started by Becca Givens and seeks to “give this planet a much needed shot of fun, support and positive energy.” Visit her site to find more Nurturing Thursday posts and a list of frequent contributors.

Although having so much access to information in the modern world can be a wonderful thing, one of the drawbacks is that we’re always seeing media stories about people who are more successful in one way or another. That can leave us feeling unsure of ourselves and doubting our abilities. If we took the time to look back over the years and list all our accomplishments, then we might realize that the list looks pretty good; but instead, we’re likely to read stories about celebrities that leave us wondering why our lives are not as glamorous, even if we wouldn’t really want to be them anyway.

Rather than worrying about how we measure up to all those totally unrealistic cultural standards, we’d do better to reflect on how much we are actually capable of doing—which is, in truth, far more than we know.

Nurturing Thursday was started by Becca Givens and seeks to “give this planet a much needed shot of fun, support and positive energy.” Visit her site to find more Nurturing Thursday posts and a list of frequent contributors.

Although I don’t work in a scientific field, I enjoyed this amusing bit of word-art sent to me in a coworker’s email recently, so I decided to share it for today’s post:

And while we’re on the topic of atoms, I couldn’t resist adding a music video of “Atomic Dog” to this post. Just go ahead and sing along with that old-school funk, and forget all about being a responsible adult; that’ll give you a smile for Nurturing Thursday. Bow wow wow…

Nurturing Thursday was started by Becca Givens and seeks to “give this planet a much needed shot of fun, support and positive energy.” Visit her site to find more Nurturing Thursday posts and a list of frequent contributors.

I had a conversation with my manager this afternoon about the company’s plans to encourage employees to develop more skills. She said that because of automation and other rapid changes in the workplace, people will need to be more flexible in moving to new tasks and positions, instead of expecting to do the same job every day for years.

Of course, that wasn’t really news; it has been going on for a while now, all throughout the economy. Millennials change jobs all the time and think nothing of it. For those of us who aren’t quite that young, it can be more of a challenge to picture ourselves in a different work environment. Either way, we’re likely to end up in a future that is very far from what we imagined. The most important skill for this uncertain future may simply be the ability to live in the present and take one breath at a time, without fear.

Nurturing Thursday was started by Becca Givens and seeks to “give this planet a much needed shot of fun, support and positive energy.” Visit her site to find more Nurturing Thursday posts and a list of frequent contributors.

It’s not easy to keep a cheerful outlook when it seems like we are constantly surrounded by news about political chaos. Still, I would say that in such times, society can benefit the most from our efforts—however small—in simply going about our lives and letting go of the drama. That does more good than we know, helping the many people who feel afraid and overwhelmed to get their minds in a healthier place, so that they can begin to do something constructive.

That’s not to say we should pretend everything is perfectly okay when it isn’t. We all have a responsibility to work toward a better society, however we might define that. But the key word here is WORK. It is not, as the prevailing narratives in the media would have it, “fight” or “war.” We are not literally on a battlefield, or anything close to it; and if we really want to solve our problems, we can’t keep on going through life with all that overblown drama getting in the way. It’s time—and past time—to let it go.

Nurturing Thursday was started by Becca Givens and seeks to “give this planet a much needed shot of fun, support and positive energy.” Visit her site to find more Nurturing Thursday posts and a list of frequent contributors.

Sometimes showing enthusiasm can feel a bit scary. Maybe there was a time when something felt really exciting, but other people complained it wasn’t useful or laughed at it. Even if that happened very long ago, those memories are still swirling around in the subconscious mind, just waiting to pop up at the first stirrings of enthusiasm. And if they have been deeply buried for many years, they could be sucking the excitement out of life without it even being apparent why.

We shouldn’t judge ourselves as weak for having such fears. After all, most people have had them at one time or another. Trying to bury them deeper doesn’t help either—they’re sure to work their way out eventually. Simply acknowledging that they are there, without judgment, can be a first step toward calming the mind. Finding little things to feel enthusiastic about on a daily basis is a concrete way of demonstrating to the inner doubter that it’s safe now. After a while, those draining old fears will naturally fade away, replaced by much healthier thoughts. Then we’ll end up surprising ourselves by how much we can accomplish!

Nurturing Thursday was started by Becca Givens and seeks to “give this planet a much needed shot of fun, support and positive energy.” Visit her site to find more Nurturing Thursday posts and a list of frequent contributors.

Sometimes we need a push to get going, and that’s especially true when we get into the winter doldrums! My work emails often include cheerful word-art from two coworkers who decided they’d be the team morale boosters a few years ago. When this one showed up in my inbox, it seemed just the thing to repost for this week’s Nurturing Thursday entry:

When we get that little nudge we need to start us going, there’s just no telling how fast we might find ourselves zooming along!

Nurturing Thursday was started by Becca Givens and seeks to “give this planet a much needed shot of fun, support and positive energy.” Visit her site to find more Nurturing Thursday posts and a list of frequent contributors.

On these long winter nights when it seems there’s not much to do, we shouldn’t be so quick to turn on the TV and distract ourselves with other people’s drama. Instead, we might do better to spend some time listening to that small inner voice offering guidance. Even when we’re not aware of it, the subconscious mind is constantly making intuitive observations, to better lead us along the path; but we can only hear them if we’re quiet enough to listen.

Nurturing Thursday was started by Becca Givens and seeks to “give this planet a much needed shot of fun, support and positive energy.” Visit her site to find more Nurturing Thursday posts and a list of frequent contributors.

In keeping with my resolution for this year to cultivate gratitude for life’s lessons, whether or not it feels like anything positive has come of them yet, I have been reminding myself that there are always multiple ways of looking at any situation. Often, taking the time to list some of the possible outcomes will reveal that there are plenty of good ways to look at it.

Such a change of perspective naturally leads to more positive feelings. After all, it’s much easier to be cheerful when looking around at a landscape that is full of opportunities, rather than obstacles!

Nurturing Thursday was started by Becca Givens and seeks to “give this planet a much needed shot of fun, support and positive energy.” Visit her site to find more Nurturing Thursday posts and a list of frequent contributors.

Although the days are slowly growing longer in the early part of winter, sometimes that’s hard to notice when it gets dark and snowy, without a hint of sunlight anywhere. We just have to take it on faith that spring will arrive after a while because, well, that’s always what happens.

And when those dark winter days leave us feeling gloomy, as if the good times are nothing but long-ago memories and far behind us, we also need to remind ourselves this won’t last forever. There will be plenty of delightful surprises in the future because that’s always what happens too!

Nurturing Thursday was started by Becca Givens and seeks to “give this planet a much needed shot of fun, support and positive energy.” Visit her site to find more Nurturing Thursday posts and a list of frequent contributors.