Remember Julie Andrews singing, “a spoonful of sugar helps the medicine go down…” in Mary Poppins?
Looking for #tinylittlejoys (TLJ) daily with @mc.phd over on Instagram, and TLJ seekers/new friends, this year has proven that finding even the tiniest little joy every day, especially on the hard days, helps lift the ‘hard’ just a little bit. Over time it becomes a game changer you will never give up.
When you’ve walked your husband to Heaven’s gates, had to raise your children alone, battled cancer, thought you could never possibly be happy again because your rose-colored glasses have been shattered, walked your parents to those gates, took your strong-willed sister with special needs into your home, and literally three pages more of legit life challenges just in the last 19 years, you eventually find you are deep in the abyss and must find your way back out.
I started hearing about neuroplasticity and how we can rewire our brains. After all, it only believes what we tell it or allow it to believe. The more we think misguided thoughts the deeper they get rooted in our brain as truth. But, we can challenge the lies we've believed by overrunning them and weakening their hold with alternative, positive thoughts that are actually true!
I realized I had been believing the lie I had told myself for years - that I could never be genuinely happy again because I had just gone through too much!
I stopped floundering and started actively seeking joy and happiness with 40 Days to a Joy-Filled Life: Living the 4:8 Principle, after a sleepless middle of the night hunt for the book already somewhere in my home.
The 40 Days study began lifting me to the surface by helping me overwrite the lies.
However, it was Dr. Mary Catherine McDonald’s practice of finding tiny little joys every day of 2025 - and I started a few months late - that got me to the surface of the abyss and primed for the breakthrough that came at the beach.
Like that spoonful of sugar that helps the medicine go down, so too tiny little joys and the hard things in life, even an abyss of deaths, traumas, heartbreaks, and more.
For instance, this cloudy sky the other day (on the titlecard), if you looked up you could see tiny pockets of blue. And, the wisps of white are reminiscent of silver linings that can only be seen because of the clouds.
Start looking for and pondering those tiny little joys (and joys of all sizes, even those in your memories) and you’ll find your way back, too!
Do it even when it’s hard. Those first few weeks were so hard for me, and sometimes it still is, but it’s so worth pushing through!!!
Making it a practice to find even one tiny little joy every day is literally life-changing!
Looking for #tinylittlejoys (TLJ) daily with @mc.phd over on Instagram, and TLJ seekers/new friends, this year has proven that finding even the tiniest little joy every day, especially on the hard days, helps lift the ‘hard’ just a little bit. Over time it becomes a game changer you will never give up.
When you’ve walked your husband to Heaven’s gates, had to raise your children alone, battled cancer, thought you could never possibly be happy again because your rose-colored glasses have been shattered, walked your parents to those gates, took your strong-willed sister with special needs into your home, and literally three pages more of legit life challenges just in the last 19 years, you eventually find you are deep in the abyss and must find your way back out.
I started hearing about neuroplasticity and how we can rewire our brains. After all, it only believes what we tell it or allow it to believe. The more we think misguided thoughts the deeper they get rooted in our brain as truth. But, we can challenge the lies we've believed by overrunning them and weakening their hold with alternative, positive thoughts that are actually true!
I realized I had been believing the lie I had told myself for years - that I could never be genuinely happy again because I had just gone through too much!
I stopped floundering and started actively seeking joy and happiness with 40 Days to a Joy-Filled Life: Living the 4:8 Principle, after a sleepless middle of the night hunt for the book already somewhere in my home.
The 40 Days study began lifting me to the surface by helping me overwrite the lies.
However, it was Dr. Mary Catherine McDonald’s practice of finding tiny little joys every day of 2025 - and I started a few months late - that got me to the surface of the abyss and primed for the breakthrough that came at the beach.
Like that spoonful of sugar that helps the medicine go down, so too tiny little joys and the hard things in life, even an abyss of deaths, traumas, heartbreaks, and more.
For instance, this cloudy sky the other day (on the titlecard), if you looked up you could see tiny pockets of blue. And, the wisps of white are reminiscent of silver linings that can only be seen because of the clouds.
Start looking for and pondering those tiny little joys (and joys of all sizes, even those in your memories) and you’ll find your way back, too!
Do it even when it’s hard. Those first few weeks were so hard for me, and sometimes it still is, but it’s so worth pushing through!!!
Making it a practice to find even one tiny little joy every day is literally life-changing!
As I've wrestled with how to bring this website back to the here and how, I've also wrestled with another component I felt needed to be added - one that can stand alone on its own. One that fits well within the parameters of Caring with Marsha.
This website will always include information to help us understand and better support the widows, and widowers, in our lives. It will also include information for anyone suffering profound grief, a grief none of us knew existed until we found ourselves in the absolute thick of it.
As a caregiver to my husband, my mom, and for four years my dad as they each had been hospitalized any number of times before coming home on hospice, as well as becoming my sister with special needs full-time caregiver, I know what it is like to get lost in caregiving others. To not be able to find ways to take care of me beyond survival modes.
During those times I searched for ways to better care for myself. All I could find were variations of "Top Ten Ways of Self-Care" sort of posts. They contained things like: have a quiet cup of coffee to start your day; take a long, hot candlelit bath, etc. These are lovely ideas for someone who needs a break after putting a little one down for the night. They don't even begin to touch what someone in the deepest trenches needs!
As I'm catching up from a three-and-a-half-year hip injury that wouldn't allow me to sit for long without it screaming in pain, I'll be continuing to gather and organize information on all facets that will fit here, so it may be a bit before regular posts become, well, regular!
A friend challenged me to get away for a night or two at a cabin taking my junk journal supplies with me. I think I will instead take my laptop, some notebooks, my phone full of notes, and anything else that will help me get everything under control and organized, then get to writing!
Please be patient as I work my way back, and know I AM COMING BACK with loads of genuinely helpful info for widows/widowers/grievers and for "advanced" self-care tips!
