Heal & Grow with Nickie
Join your host, Nickie Kromminga Hill, and her guests on a journey of personal stories and insights into healing and growth from past and current trauma. The focus is on fostering true connections through conversations centered around vulnerability and authenticity. The goal is to collectively heal and find opportunities for growth, promoting a sense of togetherness.
Heal & Grow with Nickie
The Episode of Delights
Discover the secret to finding joy in the everyday as I embark on a journey inspired by Ross Gay's "The Book of Delights." What if the key to happiness lies in the small, often-overlooked moments of our daily lives? Join me as I recount whimsical sights like French bulldogs seemingly driving cars and the sheer delight of impromptu adventures and dance parties. These small joys have the power to transform our mental wellness, helping us to navigate chaos and uncertainty with a renewed sense of gratitude and resilience.
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Today we are talking about what delights us. Don't you just love that word delight. Even saying it feels wonderful, delight, delight, delightful. Saying delightful is delightful.
Speaker 2:Hello and welcome to Heal and Grow with Nikki. I'm your host, nikki Kraminga-Hill. Here we explore anything and everything that might support us on the journey to mental wellness From hope to grief, possibilities to challenges, joy to heartache. Nothing is off limits. Let's reflect on our lives and discover ways to heal and grow together. I'm so glad you're here with me.
Speaker 1:Before we get going, I want to make sure that I give a huge thank you to Jen and Tim for buying me a coffee. I really really appreciate it y'all for buying me a coffee. I really really appreciate it, y'all. If you would like to buy me a coffee, the link is in this episode's show notes. Okay, so I just finished a book that I highly recommend. It's called the Book of Delights by Ross Gay. You can find it in my bookshop. The link is in the comments.
Speaker 1:Okay, I need to stop. Like I need to stop this episode for a second and just say this and get it off my chest so that I don't think about it anymore. I hate adding commercials to my podcast. I hate asking for money. I hate being like check out the link in my bio. But here's the thing, friends, check out the link in my bio. But here's the thing, friends, because I'm a freelance artist, that is how I get paid. This is one of my jobs, and I don't like asking for the money. I don't like disrupting my episode with a commercial, but I got to do it if I want to make any money. So that's just my guilt. My guilt coming forward today and sharing that with you and I won't. Let's not talk about it anymore because it makes me uncomfortable. Okay, back to the episode.
Speaker 1:Okay, so author Ross Gay decides to write a book that's filled with what he calls essayettes, which I just love. I love that term essayette instead of a short essay. Anyway, he decides to write a book filled with essayettes and every day for a year, his plan is to write down something that delights him. Love it, love this idea. Sort of like a gratitude journal, but not a gratitude journal. Gratitude is being thankful and showing appreciation, and delight means to please greatly. Delight means to please greatly. I just love it. So he took all of his essayettes and put it into a book. He started on his birthday and he ended on his birthday, and he didn't get every single day. I think probably 70 essayettes made it into the book. Anyway, I just loved it and I hope that you get a chance to read it.
Speaker 1:So, anyway, I decided that I wanted to do the same thing. I decided to write down things that delight me for a couple of weeks, and what I learned is that there are so many little things that make me happy or make me smile or make me giggle. There's so many things, and on every day that happens for me, and how awesome is that. I'm. I was so pleased to be like oh my gosh, there's fun, funny, wonderful little things every single day, but delight. Delight is something I had never paid attention to before. I've never paid attention to what delights me, and it turns out my day-to-day life is also filled with delightful things, things that please me greatly. So here are some of the delightful things that I noticed during this experiment, right after these words from our sponsor.
Speaker 2:I know you love to give unique gifts and my husband, paul, and I have just the solution for you, introducing the Pretty Great Merch Company. Paul and I have an online store and we're selling merch. That's pretty great, if I do say so myself. We've got t-shirts, sweatshirts, hats, bags, shower curtains, mugs, stickers so much great stuff Unique designs, quality gear and goods that let you stand out. Let our Pretty Great merch show off your style. Check us out on Instagram and Facebook at the Pretty Great Merch Co. Or check out the link in the show notes of this episode.
Speaker 1:Okay, here is a list of things that I wrote down, things that delighted me for a couple of weeks. Here is a list of things that I wrote down, things that delighted me for a couple of weeks. The first thing is superhero capes on kids and adults. Usually, you only see this around Halloween, but my husband, paul, and I were watching a really, really, really old episode of the Mole. Do you guys watch this show? I'm obsessed with it. I know it's like 20 years old, but we just found it. Anyway, this contestant on the mall decided that he was going to wear a superhero cape for the day and he acted like a superhero and it was just really fun and I thought, why not? Why don't we wear superhero capes every once in a while? Okay, another thing that delighted me is Frenchies driving cars. So I was in Palm Springs last weekend with my girlfriends on a little girls vacation and there was this like night night festival where the street was blocked off and there were all these crafts and businesses. Actually, they do this every Thursday. It's called Village Fest, maybe, I think. Anyway, while we were walking up and down the streets looking at all of the art and things, we saw two Frenchies. They each were driving their own car. Now, obviously they weren't driving, there was someone behind them with a remote control, but these Frenchies looked like they had been doing this for years, and it I just gasped in delight because I thought, oh my gosh, this is amazing. This isn't something you see every day.
Speaker 1:Another thing that delights me is my dad saves some of his food for us. I'm not sure why he's doing this, and I have talked about it in previous episodes. I think that he just wants to be able to give us something, and so he gives us things that he's not going to eat or things that he thinks that we will like. So every time we go visit him, we come home with a bag full of snacks, and it just makes me so stinking happy. Every single time it happens, he's always like there's something in the drawer for you, and there are all sorts of things in this drawer, many things we do not eat, like hard-boiled eggs or rolls or bread that are really, really hard. We don't eat those things. The only things we eat are things that are already packaged, like chips or maybe a fruit, and lately I'd say maybe the past four to six months this is my next delight he has been giving us root beer. So every time we visit him we come home with like four or six cans of root beer. And so almost every night, almost every single night, paul and I have a root beer float. I would say five nights out of seven we have Rupier floats before we go to sleep. And I mean I'm just like a kid in the candy store being like, oh my gosh, I'm an adult and I can do whatever I want, I can eat whatever I want and I want to Rupier float tonight and tomorrow and the next day and the next day and the next day, okay.
Speaker 1:Another delight is the first time you leave your house after you've been sick. Oh, that's such an amazing feeling when you've been cooped up, paul and I recently had COVID, so we were inside for a while and the first time I went outside and I actually got in my car and drove somewhere was amazing. Oh, so delightful when you've been cooped up and then you're free Such an amazing feeling. Another delight is I have a friend who's listening Hi, friend who's listening who, when we go on vacation, she's one of the girls I go on vacation with every year. We usually share a room and she brings this like linen spray and she'll always spray my pillow with it. And one it just smells so good. It smells so good. But two it's like this gesture of love from the specific person and it is delightful. I refuse to go out and buy the same kind of pillow spray on my own because this is so special to me that I only get it like once or twice a year. Oh, it's so good.
Speaker 1:Another delight we have been in our house for 12 years and we're just now starting to decorate parts of it, specifically our bedroom. We have one of those half bedrooms, half story bedrooms, and we're just now getting around to like painting it and decorating it. And we just bought these hexagon shelves and Paul put them up. And I think hexagon shelves are probably on their way out, I don't know, but I love them so much. Whenever I look at them, I just I get this big smile on my face because I just I just love them and Paul put them up for me and that just feels greatly pleasing to me. It feels delightful.
Speaker 1:Another delight is that sometimes our dog, snowball, will pick up her toy because she wants us to play with her, but instead of like coming up to us. She'll go between our legs to get our attention. So she'll be between our legs with some kind of toy and we're trying to play with her, but she's between our legs and we can't, because it's a really weird angle and it just it makes me laugh so hard and I just think it's smart of her because she's like well, they can't go anywhere if I'm in between their legs, so they have to play with me. Delightful, that's delightful for me Also.
Speaker 1:Delightful Little Free Libraries. Paul and I have one in our front yard and I love watching people come to our library and sort of go shopping for their books, and I also love going to Little Free Libraries. They're so stinking cute. I've gotten some great reads out of them. I love how some people build their Little Free Libraries so that it looks like a replica of their house. So cute, love it, love it, love it.
Speaker 1:Another delight adults and animals dressing up for Halloween. Delight. Adults and animals dressing up for Halloween Love it. When I was a kid, only kids did Halloween. It was a holiday only for kids, and now I love seeing adults get all dressed up and take their kids out trick-or-treating. I love it when animals are wearing costumes Only if they like it. Only if they like it. Please do not force your animal to wear a costume. But some animals just rock that Halloween costume and it's so fun for me to see that. Delight road trips, specifically impromptu road trips. This week Paul had to go down to Ames, iowa to pick up some drum equipment and I said, well, why not, I'll go with you. So Paul and Snowball and I took an impromptu road trip to Ames, iowa. We went down and back. There was no stopping except for, like, going to the bathroom and grabbing food, but it was just so fun. I love road trips and especially this one where we were like, yeah, let's just go, and especially this one where we were like, yeah, let's just go.
Speaker 1:Okay, here's a weird one, but it's delightful for me. I have a silicone mat that I paint on, and I do that specifically so that any leftover paint will harden and I can pull the paint chips off of the silicone mat because I want to use the paint chips in another project. I haven't figured out what I'm going to do with them yet, but I know I want to use them in another project, and so every so often I need to clean the paint chips off of the silicone mat, and it's so satisfying. You like roll it up and then they start to kind of crinkle or break off, and I just was so giddy about it. The last time I did it I was like this is so fun. I know I'm easily entertained, but it just oh, delight, delight, delight. Another delight acrylic pouring. This is the kind of painting that I'm learning how to do. I'm learning how to do a lot of abstract painting, but acrylic pouring is what I'm focusing on right now. And, oh my gosh, even when I don't like how it turns out, it's still delightful to watch all of the colors swim and swirl and I can manipulate them, but only to a certain extent. I only have a little bit of control when I'm doing acrylic pouring and I just oh, it's beautiful and it's fun and it's delightful.
Speaker 1:And, last but not least, delight is impromptu dancing. This morning, paul and I had a little dance party in our kitchen. We were trying to create a new dance move that I can't remember what it's called, but it was part shuffling your feet and part waddling like a penguin, but not. But not a penguin, like I can't explain it. You just trust me it was. It was amazing. Impromptu dance party. Delightful, delightful, delightful, delightful. So, just like anytime I do a gratitude challenge or pay attention to happiness project I like to do little projects like that all the time. So, just like anytime, I do that.
Speaker 1:This experience made me so happy because I realized that delight is all around you. It's all around me. There is delight everywhere, but you might have to specifically search for it and when you start looking for it, you notice it everywhere. Delight is everywhere and the more you notice, the more you notice. The more you notice, the more you notice. So I don't know about you, I don't know how you're doing right now, I don't know what you're thinking about our country and our world and just everything.
Speaker 1:Right now I'm thinking and feeling that the world is just upside down, topsy-turvy right now. That's like the cute Disney way to say that everything is bleeped. I just bleeped myself. I feel deeply concerned, I feel nervous because the rights of my friends are being taken away, because the systems are changing and I don't understand why they're changing or what they're changing to and how it affects me. Yet Anyway, uh, everything is topsy-turvy upside down for me and for a lot of people I know.
Speaker 1:So, doing this experiment or project, whatever you want to call it, it didn't take away any of that fear or doubt or pain. It didn't take away the fact that the world is just messed up. However, it opened me up to the idea that the world can be upside down and delightful at the same time. Both of those things can be true at the same time. And also, it is okay to find delight in a time where everything is messed up. I sometimes feel guilty when I feel good and people around me don't feel good. I believe that's called comparative suffering. It is okay to find delight and still be concerned about X, y or Z, right.
Speaker 1:So my challenge to you is to do this experiment on your own, try it for one day or one week, or I did it for like two to three weeks and I would love to hear back from you. If you do this, I want to know how it felt for you, what new things you noticed. Yeah, I would just love to hear about it. You can reach me on Instagram or Facebook at Nikki Krumminga Hill, or you can reach me on the podcast Gmail account account, which is heal and grow with nikki podcast, at gmailcom. Nikki is spelled n-i-c-k-i-e. Yeah, please reach out. I'd love. I'd love to hear from you and just see how this went for you, because I think I hope that you will find, like I did, that it's okay to be happy and sad at the same time. It's okay to find delight, even when things are crumbling down around you, and it's just fun it's just plain fun to do it. Okay.
Speaker 1:So here's what I've got going on right now that I want to share with you, and I'll link all of this in the show notes. But I am associate director and choreographer for Mary Poppins at Great Theater in St Cloud. We've just started rehearsals. We open the second weekend in April and if you are someone in that area, or if you are someone that wants to make a road trip, I'd love for you to see this show. It's really it's going to be beautiful. The cast is so talented and wonderful. Plus, our Mary Poppins gets to fly Yay, so come see Mary Poppins.
Speaker 1:Painting is something that I'm just walking into and owning, so I'm going to start selling my paintings. I will sell them on Instagram and Facebook, so please like or follow my Instagram or Facebook pages, if you aren't already. I will also be listing them for sale in my monthly newsletter that I'm going to start up again. If you would like to be on that newsletter list, I will link it in the show notes, but I'd love to have more subscribers there. That way, I can tell you more things that are going on and how to get involved. I'm also going to link my Amazon wish list, which has all the painting supplies that I am wishing for. I'm hoping to make enough money selling my paintings that I can buy more supplies, because it's a bit of a spendy hobby, but I'm loving it so much.
Speaker 1:I'm just going to keep going and keep growing. That's all we could do, right? Keep going, keep growing. I'm going to put that on a t-shirt and then you'll be able to buy it on the Pretty Great Merch Company site. How about that? I think that sounds great. Anyway, I hope that you are doing well this week, everybody. It sure is great to be back to podcasting, and I appreciate your positive feedback on me being back. It feels like the right thing to do. As always, thanks for healing and growing with me. Bye.
Speaker 2:This podcast is for informational purposes only and should not be considered legal, health or professional advice. I am not responsible for any losses, damages or liabilities that may arise from the use of this podcast. This podcast is not intended to replace professional medical advice.
