Beyond What Your Eyes Are Telling You: The Power of Small Things
- righttrackparentin
- Feb 10
- 12 min read
There's a small table in my office that I can see from my desk where I write. It sits by the window, catching morning light, and every object on it was chosen with intention after Chip died.
The base is made of iron—strong, sturdy, unyielding—fashioned into branches with a single bird perched among them. The top is glass, transparent enough to see straight through to the trees beyond my window, reflective enough to mirror back the shapes of the forest outside or my own face when I look at it from the right angle. On this glass surface sits a crystal lamp that captures and refracts light, beautiful precisely because it could shatter. Stacked beneath the lamp: three naturalist books that belonged to Chip, a collection of 101 Best-Loved Poems, and Jonathan Livingston Seagull—my father's copy that I claimed as a middle schooler and never returned.
Two glass birds rest on top of these books. The blue and burnt orange one I gave to Chip when I gifted him a glass-blowing class after his pancreatic cancer diagnosis. I figured he didn't need more stuff at that stage in his life, but more life experiences—moments that might make him happy, inspire him, teach him something new. After he died, I bought the second bird because the blue one looked lonely and needed a companion.
Flanking this curated collection are two framed paintings of herons that my friend Stephanie sent me over the years since Chip's death.
This small table—no bigger than two feet across—holds entire universes. Iron and glass. Solidity and transparency. The weight of grief and the lightness of flight. The power of small gestures to carry enormous meaning.
The Year of Daily Photos
Stephanie and I met on the first day of biology lab, freshman year at George Washington University. She's been one of my very best friends ever since, even though we've lived on separate coasts for decades—she left for Los Angeles not long after graduation while I stayed in the DC area except for a nine-year stint in Norfolk. We've seen each other maybe two handfuls of times since she moved west, but we've maintained a closeness across time and space as if we were neighbors.
When Chip died at the end of May 2020, Stephanie began sending me a photo every single day for an entire year. She never missed a day. She sent no written message with the photo. Just the image.
Each photo captured something from nature that had caught her eye—a flower, a heart-shaped rock, light on water, birds in flight. The photo would prompt me to see a symbol in the subject matter. If it were a bunch of flowers growing in a garden but two were touching, it would make me think: "Among countless possible people in the world, Chip and I found each other and connected deeply." I would send her my one or two sentence musing about the photo. Sometimes she would heart the message. Sometimes she would share her own thoughts about the photo and why she sent it.
Alongside writing my blog about losing Chip, her daily photos via text helped me heal the deep grief. This small gesture—one photo a day, no words required—became a portal through which I could process the enormity of loss.
The Heron Synchronicity
Soon after Chip's death, both Stephanie and Chip's childhood friend Bob sent me photos of herons. Stephanie lives in California. Bob lived in Delaware at the time. They have never met each other. Both sent photos of herons that are time-stamped in my photos as July 13, 2020.
Stephanie texted that she had been seeing so many herons since Chip died and that she believed Chip was visiting her in the form of his spirit animal, the heron. Bob sent his photo along with a text saying he had never seen a heron fly over the Brandywine River near Walker's Mill before, just down the hill from Chip's childhood home and one mile down river from where I had held Chip's 40-day blessing when we sprinkled some of his ashes into the Brandywine. Bob said in his text he believed it was Chip coming to say hello. Two friends—one mine, one Chip's—thinking exactly the same thing after Chip left this world on May 31. 2020.
Since those original heron texts, Stephanie has sent countless others. When Stephanie takes a photo of one standing stately—Chip stood tall and thin at six foot two—and sends it to me, I text back: "There he is! Looking so stately and handsome!"
These are small gestures. A text message. A photo. A few words exchanged. And yet they carry messages from realms beyond what we can see or touch. They create connection across vast distances—not just geographic distance between California and Virginia, but the unfathomable distance between the living and the dead.
Living Systems and the Power of Slight Shifts
When I took my year-long parent coaching course through The Parent Coaching Institute from 2022 to 2023, I learned about eight Living Systems Principles. The creator and CEO of PCI, Gloria DeGaetano, taught us that we can't think of families or people as mechanical systems. She wrote in the course manual: "In a mechanical system, the less freedom, the greater the order. In a living system, the greater the freedom to self-organize, the greater the order."
This stopped me in my tracks. It's the exact opposite of how most of us approach parenting—and life. We think more control creates more order. We think rigid schedules and strict boundaries and constant oversight will keep chaos at bay. But living systems don't work that way. Children don't work that way. Families don't work that way.
One of the eight principles she taught us is this: "The little things mean more than we will ever know."
She wrote: "In complex systems, a slight shift can make an enormous impact" and "The PCI believes that a deep understanding of 'less is sometimes more' can assist parent coaches in reframing how they approach helping parents to amplify the small shifts and observe the powerful cumulative results."
A stressed family has much to benefit from implementing the little things—small adjustments that can move children and parents in the direction of more ease, less struggle, more joy, less conflict. The PCI coaching model provides ongoing assistance for parents to see the effective changes demonstrated by these little things.
I think about Stephanie's daily photos through this lens. One photo per day seems like such a small thing. But the cumulative result—365 opportunities to find meaning, to feel witnessed, to know I wasn't alone in my grief—created an enormous impact. A slight shift in how I moved through each day. A daily ritual that gave structure to the structureless void of grief.
The Tension: Loving Small Things in a World Growing Bigger
Here's what I've come to realize about myself: I love small things.
My teeny-tiny, red B12 vitamin tablet that dissolves under my tongue each morning brings me a bit of joy. The Little Prince and his little stars make me smile. I love hummingbirds. My Dickens Village and North Pole series, small versions of homes, shops, people, animals and trees delight me, and the whole scene is still glowing 24/7 (don't ask about my December to January electric bill!). Don't get me started on babies, puppies and kittens.
This makes parenting older kids challenging. They're not young and cute anymore. They're not innocent and sweet. They push my buttons way worse than an adorable toddler or preschooler.
Teenagers can be terrifying and irresponsible. Their version of “fun” or “play” is not nearly what it was when they played with Fisher Price Little People or Polly Pockets. The reality of parenting bigger kids—they pretend to throw their sister into frozen lakes at Christmas. You can't forgive this stuff as easily as you can a toddler's tantrum. They should know better. (What if he'd slipped? What if they'd both fallen in?) And yet... there's still joy in the chaos, even when your heart is in your throat.
Saturday, I took a day trip to go skiing with Sam and his two friends. On the drive home, the three boys were playing a game together on their phones, laughing, ribbing each other for mistakes made in the game. Shouts of "Mikey, you suck!" The stuff boys do. When Sam took off his jacket in the warm car, I caught a whiff of something decidedly un-cute. He'd forgotten to put on deodorant.
Pee-yew.
This is the reality of parenting bigger kids. They smell bad. They're loud. They're not cuddly. They don't fit in your lap anymore. They're growing independent, growing away from you, preparing to take flight from your nest.
And yet. The little things still matter. Maybe they matter even more.
When a Big Ask Becomes a Small Gesture
Recently, a new client wasn't responding to my emails or texts to schedule our first visit together. I thought maybe she was being inattentive or didn't care enough about the services being offered for her child. But when I finally spoke to her on the phone, she informed me that she cannot look at screens because it makes her very dizzy due to cancer treatments.
She has three children under the age of four. She's working full-time. She's going through cancer treatment. And she can't look at screens.
She asked if we could communicate by phone instead of text or email.
At first, it felt like a big ask. A text or an email is so much faster than trying to find time to get on the phone. I have a packed schedule. I have systems in place. Phone calls feel inefficient.
But then I remembered: In complex systems, a slight shift can make an enormous impact.
For this mother juggling three young children, full-time work, and cancer treatment, my willingness to make a phone call instead of sending a quick text wasn't a slight shift—it was enormous. It was the difference between being able to access services for her child or not. It was being seen. Being accommodated. Being met where she is.
For me? It's really nothing. Five minutes out of my day. A small gesture.
But small gestures have big impact. They mean more than we will ever know.
Jonathan Livingston Seagull and the Realm of Possibility
There's a book on my curated end table that I took from my dad's shelf when I was in middle school without really asking. Jonathan Livingston Seagull. I read it and instantly fell in love. It lived in my bedroom even after I finished it. My dad knew I had it and never asked for it back. I never asked if I could keep it. I guess he knew it resonated with me and felt it should stay with me. I've had it in my possession ever since, and I've reread it over time.
What resonates most with me about this small book—you can read it in an hour—are its vast themes:
Flight is freedom. When we fly, we transcend the limitations of the physical world on earth. Jonathan's fierce individualism and belief in himself rather than conformity. His belief that it was OK to be different and break free from the flock. His determination to learn something new and fulfill himself. The idea that Heaven is not so much a place, but a state of higher awareness.
Richard Bach wrote: "Don't believe what your eyes are telling you. All they show is limitation. Look with your understanding. Find out what you already know and you will see the way to fly."
This is the heart of Wonder Before You Worry, isn't it? Don't trust only what you see on the surface. A toddler melting down in the grocery store isn't a "bad kid"—look with your understanding and you might see an overwhelmed nervous system. A teenager who forgets deodorant isn't being lazy or gross—look with your understanding and you might see a brain still developing executive function skills. Your own exhaustion as a parent isn't failure—look with your understanding and you might see someone carrying an enormous load with grace.
These are the thoughts I had frequently in my childhood. I was always wondering about the realm of possibility. What exists beyond what we can see? How do we break free from limitations? What does it mean to truly soar?
I still have these thoughts. About a million at any point in time, as my life partner Phil pointed out recently when I was talking rapidly about multiple topics in what felt like the same breath. "How do you have so many thoughts?" he asked, genuinely baffled. I laughed. "Phil, I've got about a million at any point in time, and once those thoughts take shape in words, I have about a million more."
We recognize we're different. He's labeled himself "a simple man" on more than one occasion. He loves to DO: wash dishes, cook, shovel snow, plant a garden, teach Sam how to use a tool, figure out what's wrong with the vacuum cleaner. He loves conversation, but we're often on different wavelengths. If our conversations were an onion, he's talking on the layer of the skin and I'm about four layers down.
We generally meet somewhere in the middle, but we often have to leave it there, even if I'm hungry to go deeper. (I can have those deep conversations with my brother Peter or my friend Laurel anytime I want—I can just call them up and talk about the mysteries of the Universe when I'm super hungry for depth of thought.)
But here's what I've learned: Phil's way of being is its own kind of freedom. He's not weighed down by a million thoughts. He finds joy in simple tasks, completed well. He creates order through action, not rumination.
And I think about Jonathan Livingston Seagull, who had to leave the flock to find his own path. There's no single right way to soar. Some of us soar through depth of thought. Some through action. Some through art. Some through service. The point is the soaring itself—the willingness to transcend limitations, to believe in possibility, to keep reaching for that higher state of awareness.
Through the Looking Glass: The Small and the Vast, Held Together
When I look at my curated end table, I think of Lewis Carroll's Through the Looking Glass—that story about seeing beyond surface reality, about transformation and perspective, about how things are rarely what they first appear to be.
The glass tabletop and the crystal lamp allow me to see through them to possibilities beyond: the trees outside my window, the light shifting through the day, the shapes of things yet to come. Like Alice stepping through the mirror into a world where everything is reversed and reimagined, I can look through this glass and see more than just the surface.
I see how the small and the vast aren't opposites—they're portals to each other.
The iron base is strong and sturdy, rooted like the everyday responsibilities of life: remembering deodorant, making phone calls, washing dishes, showing up. The glass top is transparent, inviting me to look beyond limitation and see infinite possibilities.
The two glass birds perched on top of the books carry this same tension. They're small, delicate objects that could shatter. And they represent flight, freedom, transcendence—from illnesses like cancer, from physical death, from our children taking flight from our nest.
The heron paintings from Stephanie remind me that small daily gestures—one photo, one text, one moment of witness—can carry us through the vastness of grief. They remind me that our loved ones who are no longer with us might still be standing stately somewhere beyond our vision, and that noticing this, naming it, and believing it matters.
Whether we're parenting tiny babies or teenage boys who forget deodorant, whether we're supporting overwhelmed clients or tending our own grief, whether we're having surface-level conversations or diving four layers deep—the principle remains the same:
The little things mean more than we will ever know.
In complex systems, a slight shift can make an enormous impact. A daily photo. A phone call instead of a text. A glass bird that needs a companion. A book passed from father to daughter without words. A table carefully curated to hold both the weight of loss and the lightness of possibility.
These small gestures create the conditions for vastness, for transcendence, for that greater order that comes not from control but from freedom—the freedom to self-organize, to take flight, to soar toward our own higher awareness.
The glass on my end table lets me see the whole world through it. It holds both transparency and the invitation to look beyond what my eyes are telling me. Both seeing outward toward the realm of possibility and seeing inward to what I already know.
That's what the little things do. They light the way. They create connection across impossible distances. They transform mechanical systems—where less freedom means greater order—into living systems, where greater freedom creates the space for something truer, deeper, more beautiful to emerge.
Heaven is not so much a place, but a state of higher awareness. And we get there not through grand gestures or enormous shifts, but through the accumulation of small things, done with intention and love.
One photo at a time. One phone call at a time. One glass bird at a time. One stinky teenage boy at a time.
The little things. They mean more than we'll ever know.
About the Author
Cynthia Z. Stevens Copeland, MA, CCC-SLP is a speech-language pathologist with 30+ years of experience, specializing in early intervention since 2018. She is the founder of Right Track Parenting and creator of the Investigative Parenting methodology—teaching parents to "wonder before you worry, imagine before you interpret, create before you catastrophize." A certified parent coach and student of Dr. Martin Seligman's Foundations of Positive Psychology at the University of Pennsylvania, Cynthia writes from lived experience as a mother of five children scattered across three continents. When she's not working with families or curating moments of beauty from loss or some other feeling, you'll find her having conversations four layers deep about the mysteries of the Universe.
© 2026 Cynthia Z. Stevens Copeland / Right Track Parenting. All rights reserved.
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