Live Deliberately

Precious moments require perspective to appreciate. Some are gut-wrenching moments you’d purge from your life if you could, but the lessons those hard times teach us are key learning experiences that shape our lives remarkably. They also help us treasure the heart-melting moments that can be but a second long yet stay with us a lifetime. And would we even notice the marvel without the misery?

As I write this, our family has been reunited with our beloved patriarch finally home “for good” from his yearlong deployment in Iraq. The joyous reunions and adjustments to togetherness have been welcome changes filled with amazement and tension alike. My own therapy during my husband’s deployment included an experiment with a recommendation for daily rigorous exercise to manage stress and anxiety. Sharing this knowledge with my husband recently has given him newfound excitement for living “deliberately” as I like to call it.

I use the word as a way to define the freedom you experience when you exercise away your frustrations and tensions, leaving you with more energy for the good stuff. It really is the simplest form of stress relief available reminding us of the inter-connectedness of life experiences even from one moment to the next. Sweating and a hard workout offers a kind of mind-body purging that cleanses your body and resets things back to neutral. So, take one dose of exercise daily for best stress-relief results and be ready to reap the benefits of living deliberately.