Chronically Joyful

My sister once said to me, “People prioritize the things that are important to them” and it’s stuck in my mind ever since. Like onions, it turns out that motivating statements can also have layers; in the last few weeks, I’ve stuck to this one liner as I always do, but have opened my eyes to another piece that I’d never thought about before. 

It is absolutely true that people do prioritize the things that are important to them.

A mother prioritizes her children.

A lover will prioritize time with their partner. 

An athlete will prioritize practice and training for their craft. 

These are granular, easy to spot examples though. Where I once again was humbled in the last few weeks is in the knowing and full acceptance that the way people prioritize the things important to them may not always match your assumed expectations of what that should look like. 

I have a lot of fun with Astrology in my daily life and resonate with my Leo personality A LOT. With this my gifts lie in being fiercely loyal, incredibly open and over communicative, and making sure every human on this planet that means something to me 100% knows it without a crumb of doubt. I’ve been humbled recently because the process of prioritizing someone important doesn’t need to look the way we often expect. Visit my video, Give a lil’ Grace, fore a deeper dive on this in real-time!

But for now, let’s unpack the specific instance where I was once again cracked open and another layer of depth within me was uncovered – 

Walk MS Richmond is kicking off tomorrow morning and for obvious reasons, this event is incredibly important to me. I will be participating amongst a team of colleagues and friends this year and as an active participant in the Chronic Illness Focus Group at work, I was tasked with getting the number of participants up there to make it memorable. As the big cheerleader I am, I think I’ve asked every single human being on the floor at work and would say I was somewhat successful! The humbling began when I connected with the people who were closer to me – close friends and family. 

As I always say, when something isn’t a resounding “YES” it’s ultimately a no. I received this specific response from not 1, but 3 different people when asked to attend this event: “No thanks, small talk and big events aren’t really my thing.” Spoiler alert, 1/3 of these people were my own father LOL. I completely understand and empathize with this perspective! When I initially received this reply, it hurt each time I heard it; I took it personally and felt de-prioritized and like I wasn’t important to those 3 people at all (sorry, daddio). 

Where she began to crack open – 

In the midst of my pity party over here thinking about how little people cared about little old me, I had yet another blinding flash of the obvious (or a BFO as my uncle would say). There was no truth in my assumption that these people didn’t care about me or the event. What WAS true was that both the event and I do matter to these people, they just have different ways of conveying that. 

For example, after my dad rejected me, I had a pretty visceral reaction in the moment. He justified that it’s never really been his thing and that he would gladly celebrate me in other ways and will always show up specifically for me with all the love in the world. Honestly, I’d rather accept that LOL. After my colleague’s initial rejection, she promptly replied with “but if I can donate or support in other ways, please let me know and I’m happy to do so.” 

At the moment I didn’t see these responses for what they were – genuine care shown in a way I wasn’t expecting, so I was blind to see. Just because someone shows their care for you in a way you don’t prefer, or don’t understand, doesn’t invalidate the fact that they care about you. All of this ties back to my standard practice of always assuming positive intent and focusing on the good in the world because when we don’t, all we can see are the results we weren’t looking for and barriers to what we want. 

In the midst of more challenging times (it’s been a year of a month at my day job and my MS-riddled brain is certainly feeling it), it can be harder to see the light at the end of the tunnel. I’m trying to take an approach where I’m less reactive in the moment (it isn’t going well this week LOL) and instead take a beat to consider “what is the deeper layer this moment is trying to show me?” Believe me, much easier said than done, especially in a very fast moving environment where everything is deemed a high priority with competing capacity constraints. This is absolutely an art, not a science for me, but I know in my heart that if I’m successful at approaching situations this way, better things will come.

So, gentle readers, always remember that people are doing their best. Things may not look the way you expect them to on the surface, but that doesn’t mean the positive side is absent. Continue to assume positive intent in others and expect the unexpected in the best possible way. 

If you’d like to spend more time with me in breaking this down, check out my recent video — Gargoyles & Shadows — forever the optimist and never letting anything get me down, let’s foster a positive community together!

With love and light, thank you for being here with me today, and thanks for always remaining Chronically Joyful. ♡