Ella,

What a blessing to have such a forced timeout, and to be surrounded by people with such life experience! What a great chance to recalibrate! I hope your breath has returned to its full vigor.

You’re right on to make the little things the big things. Rather than focusing on the results, such as trying to make breakfast the big joy and the job the small one, consider that perhaps its more about the moment to moment decisions as you follow your heartfelt desires. Like, it doesn’t matter what you have for breakfast, what you do for a living, if at each step you follow what seems best, what sings best to your heart. Rather than trying to find the “big choices that make it all peachy”, its more like a million small decisions that make peaches and thunderstorms a wonder of nature.

Its ironic you also feel that pressure from your parents. They have a way of really deflating the wind from our sails if we let them! They don’t clip our wings though, our “taking in their words” causes us to clip them ourselves. Big difference! Luckily, feathers grow back. 🙂

My mom does the same thing. “Hey Matt, compassion isn’t a noble goal, you need to…” and then any smorgasbord of things she thinks is lacking in my life. If I were to bring her words in, trust her wisdom over my own heartwhispers, perhaps I would abandon my choices for hers. Instead, I hug her, thank her for her kind attempts to light my way for me, and watch her drive home. Then, back to compassion! 🙂 Parents might not get the path their children walk, but once we’re fired from the bow, launched out into the world, they also don’t have the same information we do, haven’t seen and heard the same things. This makes them more likely to push/pull us according to their own vision, instead of our own, but that’s OK. They are our parents, and their job is pretty much always going to be to poke and prod. 🙂

From a different direction, consider that instead of trying to find something in the small things, try to just breathe, be mindful, letting go of the past and future. That’s when we stop being so distracted by what mom and dad said should bring us happiness, and happiness blooms quite easily inside us. Then, toast, bagels, cereal, fruit… the content of breakfast doesn’t matter as much as the smiling beauty that is chewing whatever it is.

If you have difficulty staying present, mind sliding this way and that, consider starting a meditation practice. Like letting our parents come, say what they have to say, and go, we can do the same with our thoughts and perceptions. They arise, do their little dance, then go. As we meditate, the space surrounding our thoughts opens up, and they don’t poke and prod us nearly as much. A great starting practice is metta meditation. Metta is the feeling of warm friendship, and helps the mind become peaceful, spacious, and smooth. Consider “Sharon salzberg guided metta meditation” on YouTube, if interested. There’s no need for the criticism to become sticky, from either your parents or yourself. 🙂

With warmth,
Matt