Betty Would Love That!
Our Mom, Betty, was a happy, outgoing person. She smiled at strangers, chatted with grocery store clerks and anyone else who was so inclined. Babies and dogs were a particular favorite. She walked every day and participated in 5K events with us well into her eighties. As far as we know, she didn’t meditate, journal or follow any other strategy to maintain her cheerful attitude. She just seemed to be a naturally happy person.
When she passed, the Sisterhood decided to honor her with this blog, and an instagram account (@bettywouldlovethat) in her name. And we committed to walking a 5K in every Province. Eight years on we have walked in 7 Provinces, laughing, engaging with strangers and just having fun. We continue to meet every Sunday to discuss the previous week and plan the next blog post. Mom would be proud.
The Three Good Things Email
The Sisterhood is always looking for blog topics, and recently Big Sis ran across an interesting article detailing the story of a woman who, on a whim, decided to send a friend an email listing three good things that had happened to her that day. She explained that she just wanted to share her gratitude with her friend. There was no expectation of reciprocity, or even an acknowledgement of receipt. In short, no need to reply if she didn’t want to.
But the friend did reply with three good things of her own, adding that she had shared those three things with another mutual friend, and it grew from there. It soon became a daily email amongst a circle of five friends. Again, no need to reply, unless you want to.They purposely chose to keep it simple, but often the friends were inspired by others emails and replies sparked meaningful conversations.
Speaking of meaningful conversations, at our next meeting the Sisterhood was inspired to discuss the three good things email and gratitude. We enthusiastically threw out random ideas and eventually came full circle. Amongst many other things, we are grateful for Mom, our regular meetings, each other and our strong connection. We are grateful for the fun and laughter that we share, and the opportunity to offer Little Sis career and retirement advice.❤️
The next step was to see if we could somehow incorporate the three good things email concept into our Sisterhood Motivational Guidelines. Honestly, sharing three things on a daily basis seemed too steep a hill to climb. We eventually decided to open our weekly meetings with each of us contributing the best thing that happened during the previous week…..baby steps☺️It’s a small start but we’re sure that Betty would love that!
