Julie Soul 0:00
Welcome to the creative homeschool podcast. And this podcast I'm coming at you to deliver you a weekly dash of creativity to make your homeschool exciting for your kids. But for you too, we're going to explore all of the different ways to creatively homeschool games, field trips, unit studies, writing activities, Kid businesses, art and more. I'm your host Julie soul, longtime homeschool mom, shenanigan enthusiast, espresso drinker, and founder and co owner of soul Sparkletts art, I've helped 1000s Add creativity and joy to their homeschool, and I'm ready to help you today. Ready to get started. Let's go. Hi, everyone. Welcome back to the creative homeschool Podcast. Today I want to talk about a story of something that happened to me a year and a half ago. And I want to talk about the idea of resilience and pushing through a year and a half ago, I was coming back from a vacation and I was taking a shower, when I found that I can feel my leg, my light turned red. And then it has turned purple. And not in that I think it's purple kind of way in that my leg looks like a Crayola Tran kind of way the ambulance was called. And I was rushed to the hospital. And we were pretty convinced that I was going to lose my leg. And there was no guarantee that I was actually going to survive. Now my kids watched all of this happen. This was in a time when the hospitals were very full with COVID patients. And there was no guarantee that there was even a room for me. Now you can tell I'm still here. So that's a happy ending of that. But not without a lot of life impacts. And one in particular is I still have my leg. But it was very hard for me to walk when I got out of the hospital, I could barely make it from the bed to the bathroom, I could not put my leg up onto anything, I had to have someone actually take my leg and physically put it up on the bed for me. And then it would just kind of fall off. And I had over 50 pounds of swelling in that leg. It took a long time for me to be able to go somewhere where someone would say Please sit in the lobby.
Unknown Speaker 2:14
And I would look at those chairs. And they would feel too low to the ground. Because I knew if I sat in one, I wouldn't be able to get up. Now I look at those lobby chairs. And I think wow, I can't believe how far I've come. But the reason I've come this far is because of these baby steps. And some of you out there might have had a life event, something that's impacted you in a way that it feels like your life is never going to be the same. And I want to talk about the idea of resilience. So what is resilience? So according to Oxford, is the capacity to withstand or recover quickly from difficulties. I'd like to argue that quickly. Because we don't need to recover quickly. What is quickly, is quickly a year and a half. Does that mean I should have been walking in a day so quickly can mean different things to different people. But what I do know is that it has taken a series of really, really tiny events of me showing up when I feel like nobody else is watching. And I bet you you have things that you are trying to accomplish too, that require these small moments of showing up. For me, it's going to our gym, I go there four times a day, not four times a day, four times a week. I'm not there to four times a day. And I see my trainer once a week. And I don't necessarily want to go every single time but I do and the fact that I'm showing up those little teeny tiny things have continued to make progress so much so that a year ago, one of my bucket list items was to be able to take my kids on a dune buggy ride in Saugatuck, which is one of the two places in Michigan that has dune buggy rides. For those of you who don't know Michigan has beautiful sand dunes. And getting in the dune buggy is a big adventure for anyone who has trouble walking. They have a set of stairs that they kind of move up there, but it's a big jeep. It's a huge thing. Lots of steps, lots of trying to navigate in there and get comfortable. And a year ago, I had to pull myself up and it was the hardest thing that I had ever done. And yesterday. I got in it almost effortlessly. And that changed in just a year. I had no idea that I had gotten that much stronger. So when you're looking at things that you've done, those things that you could show up for, what's that one thing that you're thinking about that you really wish that you could accomplish? It is very hard to show up on those days.
Unknown Speaker 5:00
that nobody's watching, to continue to show up when you don't even know if you're seeing the progress. So I've wanted to remind you to make sure to take the time to celebrate those small moments. Yesterday was, to me a huge moment. But I don't think anyone else was celebrating getting in the actual dune buggy ride yesterday. But I was. And I took time to make sure that I was celebrating something that I had accomplish. Every single time I go to the gym to work out, I let myself get one of the coffee's that they have there. Because I deserve to celebrate me, and you deserve to celebrate you. So what things are you trying to do? Aren't you trying to run your first marathon? Are you trying to be able to plan a basketball team? Because you can never do that as a child? Are you trying to write a book? Are you trying to learn how to master a certain skill, these things that aren't going to happen overnight. But it's a series of small events, and you showing up all the time, that make the difference. And sometimes, you don't see the difference at all, until it's already there. So I want to remind you to take time to celebrate those small moments, those small wins those times where you chose to show up. And I want you to remember this when you're homeschooling your kids. What did they do today? That might seem a little but it deserves celebrating? Did they come to the table to do their math? And for the first time, you didn't have to call their name eight times? Did they focus well, was the writing amazing? Was their science project just perfect? Did they have incredible ideas about what they wanted to study next, all those little teeny tiny things, take the time to celebrate those small wins those small things that add up. Because just like the small things have added up to me being able to do something and I still have a long way to go. I'm still learning how to get up off the floor, which is still hard for me. And they've told me that I need to leg press 70 pounds single leg, and I finally made it up to 15 pounds. That's a long way to go everyone. So it can be hard. But it's rewarding. And learning to celebrate those small moments for us, and also for our kids. Those little teeny tiny things add up. We know that if we read a page in a book every day, eventually that book gets finished. Instead of us feeling like we need to read it all at once. It's just those little teeny tiny things one step at a time. And finally, if you have a story, the way that I do, I want to encourage you to share it when you're ready to because sometimes those things those life changes happened to us. And it puts us in this beautiful position to help others and to help motivate others who might be going through the same thing. And they might hear that story and think if that person did it, then maybe I can do it too.
Unknown Speaker 8:15
Okay, everyone, have a wonderful week. Till next time
Transcribed by https://otter.ai
