The more you can think creatively and begin to incorporate exercises into your everyday, the more you’ll feel successful and want to do more. I’m challenging you this week to grow your brain through simple daily exercise.

I’m a gardener.  I love to grow, till, weed, feed and tend to my plants.  Your brain is like a plant. A plant needs to be watered regularly.  It needs to be exposed to the right amount of light.  It needs nourishment in the form of additives and vitamins.  Lack of any of these components will result in the plant not flourishing.

Some events were driven by my own decisions, others driven simply by life. Misfortune. Selfishness. Vanity. Yet, I wouldn’t go back and change them. They’ve helped make me become who I am today. I’m pretty sure I’d tell my younger self that I’d rather not hear any details. Surely the details wouldn’t be believed by my younger self. My younger self would tell me I couldn’t possibly do those things.

“ Generosity: The habit of giving freely without expecting anything in return.” — Anonymous

My husband has taught me a lot about generosity without even knowing he’s done it.  He hasn’t given me a book on generosity or told me how to do it nor given me some sermonette about it.  He lives it.

It goes without explaining that we live in a very polarized time.  Friendships and lifelong relationships are being tested and sometimes broken because of the heightened political rhetoric.  Jokes of the rudest manner seem to live and breathe in this atmosphere.  People seem to think by saying “it’s just a joke” is a free pass to saying something rude, offensive, racist, or demeaning to a group of people.

My motivation Post M.S. is very different.  In the early stages of the disease I didn’t have all the assistive devices (cane, walker, wheelchair) that I currently have in my M.S toolkit.  So, when my walking ability was impacted, my strong daughter would carry me around the house on her back.  Walking to the end of my driveway (about 50 yards), to take out the trash, was impossible.  Standing over the kitchen stove for longer than 10 seconds wasn’t possible.

Ok, this is where calendar neurosis tries to rear its ugly head.  I’m tempted to block out a few chunks of time to be able to “plan for” the “always something.”  Nope.  I’m not going to do it.  Nope.  What I need to do is not run such a tight schedule, so that I’m open and available cognitively and emotionally to whatever comes into my day.