How Do I Find It?

Yesterday I wrote about finding the flicker. It’s ok to be down, sad, mad, hurt, etc., but we need to be trying to be something better and looking for the flicker.

But how? When you’re surrounded by darkness, how do you spot the light, especially when it’s so small that it’s barely a flicker?

Honestly, I don’t know how to find your flicker – that’s why it’s yours. Only you know how to find it. Vague enough for you? Sorry.

I’ll share my flicker and hope that it helps you find yours.

First, my secret. I have more than one flicker. Sometimes one of them isn’t working or is the cause of the darkness (that happens sometimes). I had to find more than one thing to look for. Like stars in the dark sky, it’s easier to find a flicker when they’re everywhere.

Flicker number 1: My niece and nephews. I can hug and kiss them all I want. They love me no matter how bad my day has been and I don’t have to explain anything to them (they’re too young to understand it anyway). (Have I mentioned that I love being an aunt?)

Flicker number 2: My visiting teacher (another Mormon thing – you can read about it here). She actually checks on me every month (more like every week) and she genuinely cares. She’s straight with me too so I usually know if I’m just having a pity party or if I’m really down.

Flicker number 3: The other people counting on me. They give me a purpose; a reason to get out of my bed or to pull myself out of that dark corner of my closet and brush my teeth.

Flicker number 4: A long, hot bath. I love sitting in a long hot bath at the end of a long day. I turn on the Lullaby Radio on Pandora and let the water get cold. Sometimes I use a smelly bubble bath and sometimes it’s just water. Sometimes I’ll cry it out and sometimes I’ll just tune it out.

Flicker number 5: A good, long, hard cry. A good cry can be so cleansing. It almost always gives me a migraine the next day, but once that’s gone, I’m good as new. (As a side note, the hubs is NOT a fan of this one. Jon does not like it when I cry. As a man, he thinks that if there’s a leak, he needs to fix it. In this case, it just needs to drain and then it will fix itself. He’s learning.)

Those are a few of my flickers – I have more, and the more I list the more I think about, so I’m going to stop there.

So, that’s all fine and good, right? I’ve told you what they are, but I still haven’t told you how to find them.

It’s simple really – you look.

Sometimes the mere act of looking for a flicker becomes one. For some people, it’s running (I am NOT one of those people). They found that flicker because they tried it. For other, it might be sewing or scrapbooking or quilting or Candy Crush. The beach might be your flicker, or a nice hike in the snow.

You’re not going to know until you look and try. If it doesn’t work, you’ll know, and you’ll know you can move on. That’s ok too.