“Be grateful for the love of your family.” — Shirley Johnson
We made it to the last mantra together.
Seven weeks ago, I introduced you to my neighbor Shirley Johnson, the 90-something soul-knowing friend whose wisdom has been quietly rearranging my days. We have walked through five of her mantras since, and each one has given me something I needed.
Today, the sixth.
“Be grateful for the love of your family.”
Of course Shirley closes here. After everything she has lived through, everything she has learned, everything she has surrendered and received, this is where she lays her closing word. On family. On love. On gratitude.
Then she added something I have been turning over in my mind since the day she said it. She told me, “I was raised on a farm. Simpler times. No computers, no phones, no AI.” She said it without nostalgia or complaint. The pace was different then. The closeness was different then. Gratitude grew up between people because there were not as many things competing for it.
I am not going to pretend we can return to that exact world. We are here, in this one, with our phone notifications and our screens. But Shirley’s mantra is not asking us to time travel. It is asking us to keep our hearts oriented toward what has always mattered most. The people who raised us, the people who chose us, the people we are raising now, the people we have made into family even without sharing blood.
Family is wider than we sometimes remember. Family is the ones whose names live in our hearts when we say a quiet thank you at the end of the day. Family is the ones we miss. Family is the ones we still get to hug. Family is the ones whose love is woven into who we became.
So today, before we walk through what the whole series has taught me, I want to invite you to do something simple. Pause. Picture a few of the faces of the people you call family. Hold them for one slow breath each. Say their name in your heart. Whisper a thank you.
That is the mantra. That is the practice.
The Finale: All Six Mantras, Together
I want to walk back through all six of Shirley’s mantras with you, because seeing them together as one set is different than seeing them one at a time. Together they are a way of life. A whole posture. A practice for standing tall in any season.
- You cannot change the wind, but you can adjust your sails.
The first mantra returns our power to where it actually lives. Not in the wind, but in the sail. Acceptance with agency. We get to choose our perspective, our response, and our next small step. That is more than enough.
- Don’t sweat the small stuff.
Small stuff steals our peace. We pay the tax. Naming what is small, redirecting our energy somewhere truer, and borrowing some steadiness from the Power breathing through us is how we get our peace back.
- God gave me a brain, so I better use it.
The mind is a gift. We tend it. We stay curious. We let our conversations stretch us. We aim our thoughts toward good. Our brains love to be used, and we love who we are when we are using them.
- Surround yourself with wonderful people.
Silver friends and gold friends. We name them, we tend them, we get to be them for someone else. The people we let close shape our hearts every day. Choose your surround on purpose.
- Remember, there are many people with bigger problems than yours.
A doorway, not a dismissal. We honor our pain first, look around and notice others who are also in pain second, and let compassion become action third. Service is medicine. Connection is medicine. We are joined to the bigger ocean, and remembering that holds us.
- Be grateful for the love of your family.
Where we started. Where we end. The people whose love is woven into who we are. Pause. Picture them. Whisper a thank you. Do this often.
Six mantras. One wise woman. A whole way of standing tall.
Here is what has shifted for me across six weeks with Shirley. I notice that I am gentler with myself when the wind blows. I notice that I am letting the small stuff stay small. I notice that I am asking better questions, of myself and the people I love. I notice that I am tending my gold friends on purpose. I notice that my heart has been widening in the weeks where I have been stretched. And I notice that gratitude, the kind that names specific people in specific moments, has become a daily practice instead of a holiday gesture.
This is the gift our wise ones offer us, if we slow down enough to receive it. They are not just telling us how to live. They are showing us what is possible, just by living. Shirley is one of my gifts. I hope you will find your “Wise One”, if you have not already. I hope you will sit with them. I hope you will write down their words. I hope you will pass those words on.
Standing Tall has always been built on this truth. We are not meant to walk through this life alone. We hold each other up. We share our wisdom. We pass forward the love we received. We let the people we have lost continue to live in us through how we love now. We let the people in front of us become the next chapter of someone’s gold friendship. This is the slow, beautiful work of being human together.
Thank you for walking these seven weeks with me. Thank you for letting these mantras land where they were needed.
If something in this series stirred your heart, I invite you to come closer. Share this finale with someone who could use a soft place to land today. Reach out to one of your gold friends. Hold the name of someone you call family in your heart for a long second. And if you feel called to support our community in any way, with your time, attention, words, or a contribution, we welcome you with arms wide open. Every act of love adds up to a world that holds us better, and Standing Tall is built on those acts, one at a time, by all of us.
Shirley, thank you. For your zest. Your warm smile. Your intentional words. Your gift of finding blessings in the challenges. Your six mantras. Your gold friendship. You are a treasure.
To all of you reading, I will leave you with the one breath I keep coming back to.
May the wind be at your back, or at least at the right angle.
May the small stuff stay small.
May your brain be a gift you tend.
May your gold friends know they are gold.
May your eyes find the bigger horizon.
May your family, in every form, know they are loved.
With love,
Colleen
