I M Perfect lady

Tag: life

  • Not the Tail…

    When one person in a relationship changes, the relationship changes, for you are asked to adjust yourself. We are like two moving puzzle pieces that keep losing their shapes and we have to move and work to fit back together.

    I have felt the nerve of my security and found that it is based on sameness.

    It likes looking at the sameness; it likes to see itself in others and is fearful around different views and actions…it gets nervous.

    My security nerve feels more secure when the other person acts, thinks and moves like me, it wants a mirror image, it feel secure there.

    When a person moves in a different direction, I feel they are hearing differently than I, perhaps tuned into a different radio station, and dancing to a completely different song.

    My history on group movement, and being so alike, has made my security nerve accustomed to a bunch of people moving like a flock of birds, and it feels uneasy with independent movement.

    This is good to know, that it isn’t that the actions so much that is off, but how I perceive it.

    When you are raised to fit into a group and live nestled in that group, it is really odd to separate and live as a single.

    A single amongst the many…

    An individual doesn’t make you alone; it makes you a single in the bunch of many, a unique expression of humanity.

    My security nerve is okay with me being unique, however, it does seem to register changes within others as well.

    If the changes are empowering and heading towards whole being, I am okay…and actually feel a lift as I cheer them on…but if the changes are someone losing their power, I feel the drain as well.

    My security nerve has to fully separate and become its own, and stop being so co-dependent upon another’s power source.

    My wiring seems to get twisted up, it surges or fails when my boundary between self and other get blurred.

    Where my sense of self leaves my body and is attached inside of another, in one point two seconds, I am clinging to their feelings to find mine.

    When my power of security relies on another, I fail for I am plugged into them and their actions for my peace of mind, and this is insanity.

    This is how I know that a part of me is still co-dependent, for I feel unsettled by your actions, I feel my power surging or failing; I feel the pull and ebb as you move.

    It is incredible and yet frightening to feel the tail of the dog, and not being the dog.

    When I am the tail I have no power, I go where you go and either wag or droop…but can’t steer.

    Life is completely different when you are the dog and not the tail…

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  • Mold in sight.

    What I didn’t know about writing is that you are supposed to have a plan first, a graph, a map, an idea, an outline, something for the words to fall into, that you don’t just stand there empty handed and catching them as they fall.

    I felt like a neglectful writer, unskilled, untaught and uncaring, yet as I step back and see the overview, I am astonished how hard most writers make it.

    It seems they are trying to predict the unpredictable, like trying to control reality, or planning for an unknown future.

    As I look upon my first 46 years of living, I had structure, I had rules of a religion to follow, and I had to fit into that, foregoing all my instincts and passion.

    My natural spiritual self was whittled down to fit into their mold.

    My mother sculpted this mold, and we had to squeeze ourselves into the walls, making sure we didn’t jut out unbecomingly.

    Our goal was to replicate this mold and make our children to conform to look the same, sound the same, and walk the same, little molds of sameness.

    Kept to the outside were words that didn’t match this mind set, this ideology and beyond their very rigid lines danced wonderful words and ideas in a field of pure potential…forbidden to us congregants.

    We had to disregard all things that didn’t match the mold, and by doing so passed up 99.9% of reality…and lived with .1% of our self.

    This .1% of me is where I began writing from, asking how I had sold so much of myself off and what did I truly believe coming from the base of me.

    From the base of me I ask the question and have no rules as to what comes, or where it takes me, what conclusion we draw, what systems we debunk, there is nothing off limits, there are no walls between me and my words.

    In fact I am tearing down the parts of me that have been crammed into the tight space, and giving life again to the long forgotten parts of me.

    There just simply can’t be a grid to follow, for I have no idea who I am, where I am going or what my purpose is…writing is helping me define who I am.

    I am meeting my words with a blank slate and they are coming from the mold of extreme restriction, so they too are excited not having to guard themselves and their truths.

    We are the clay and the sculptor with no pattern or mold in sight…

  • Echo each other.

    I was in a discussion about Art and its healing qualities, and it came to me why Art is so crucial, Art or any creative activity is done in this moment of time.

    It requires you to be here focused on what is at hand, bringing your attention to this second of your life, it wipes away the past for a while, and blocks the future, it becomes an island of safety in an otherwise troubled time.

    An island that isn’t asking questions or requiring you to make hard choices, it is an oasis of freedom to let your life’s troubles go and you come to play.

    Like recess.

    It is a playground where you can leave your worries or stresses behind.

    While playing with colors and designs, you are reconnecting to what you love.

    Art has to be an exercise for the soul…

    It isn’t an intelligent process at all; it doesn’t require the mind to show up, what happens is that instinct leads the way.

    In my darkest moments, I played with the brightest fabrics, and was drawn to creating feelings and emotions that I didn’t have access to in my life.

    Art held for me these emotions, until slowly they seeped back into my own life.

    Art was a place to put my love, peace and joy, until it was safe to return it to the world around me. It was a place I could trust, when all else seemed unfaithful.

    Perhaps we learn to trust our selves by doing Art, or find what we love, what we want, and the freedom to be ourselves.

    I had little fear in Art when there was so much to fear in life, I became fearless in trying new things for I had nothing left to lose.

    I think we all hide or escape to playgrounds when life becomes unmanageable, but the key isn’t to stay there, but to take what you learn from Art and create an Artful life.

    I have learned that by letting go and not trying to force things to happen, answers arrive. To just move things around until they click or to walk away for a while an come back, to ask the Universe for answers and then pay attention, you will be surprised who brings you the perfect technique that you need.

    To not expect that you should know where to go, what it will eventually look like, but to live in the space of surprise and unknowing.

    Try new things, go new places, or go back to old places but look for new things…life is an interactive play, and you hop and interact.

    Art can heal a life that isn’t Artful or one that is missing your spirit.

    Art is expressing your soul. If you can’t do it in your life, begin by allowing it to express itself in an art form.

    It matters not what kind of Art you do, what matters is that you listen to the voice inside of you, to feel its passion, to feel its excitement…to feel life.

    Art and life echo each other.

  • Gate to love

    Fear… this incredibly small word is extremely powerful and it has led my life and all its decisions.

    I am not sure I can articulate the difference of living life from a position of love compared to fear.

    Unless you see your fear driven life, you may not even know how much of your life has been absconded by fear.

    I looked up the word absconded, for it isn’t my usual word, but it felt right to express my sentiments, but I wanted to make sure I was using it properly.

    Do you know its meaning?

    It means – “To depart in a sudden and secret manner.”

    It fits perfectly. Fear absconed with my life.

    Here is what I know for sure, is that if you are left untreated after abuse, you will live from that day foreward, not as love, but fear.

    Fear replaces love. A young girl living in love, becomes a young girl living in fear.

    How to explain this. I go into a situation with my father filled with love for him and I come out filled with fear. I go to my mother in love and with fear of my father, and she doesn’t do anything, I then leave in fear her….

    My love, or those who love me are absconed and replaced with fear.

    Dr. Maya Angelou has a quote about the endurance of a child suffering is born out of the lack of alternatives.

    I didn’t have a loving place to go, so I had to live as fear.

    This fear mode of living is hard to describe, but it leaves you with the knowing that the world is not a safe place to be, that at any time terror will jump in front of you, that those you love will do something fearful…and you have to prepare and plan to dodge these bullets.

    My whole view of life was geared toward protecting and a very defensive way of living.

    I was on guard. A Fear Filled guard.

    The small pint of love that lived within me was toward objects and things, items that had no power of hurting me.

    But live living creatures, yikes, at anytime a friendly face could turn and bite you…and many did.

    The most sad and tragic part in being a fear filled maniac, is that my children were mothered from this position.

    Instead of teaching them the wonderful loving kind beautiful amazing things, my mantra was what was out to get you.

    Understandably we all know how I was raised to become this way, and gratefully with a lot of fearlessness, I have been able to learn how to love and not fear AND to fear those who rightly needed to be feared and not loved.

    What an amazing ride.

    There is a a poem that Kim Rosen speaks of in this months Oprah magazine, called Kindness by Naomi Shihab Nye

    “Before you know what kindness really is you must lose things,
    feel the future disolve in a moment
    like salt in a weakened broth.
    What you held in your hand,
    what you counted on and carefully saved,
    all this must go so you know
    how desolate the landscape can be
    between regions of kindness.
    How you ride and ride
    thinking the bus will never stop,
    the passengers eating maize and chicken
    will stare out the window forever.

    Before you learn the tender gravity of kindness,
    you must travel where the Indian in a white poncho
    lies dead by the side of the road.
    You must see how this could be you,
    how he too was someone
    who journeyed through the night with plans
    and the simple breath that kept him alive.

    Before you know kindness as the deepest thing inside, you must know sorrow as the other deepest thing.
    You must wak up with sorrow.
    You must speak to it till your voice catches the thread of all sorrows and you see the size of the cloth.

    Then it is only kindness that makes sense anymore,
    only kindness that ties your shoes
    and sends you out into your day to mail letters and purchase bread,
    only kindness that raises its head
    from the crowd to the world to say
    it is I you have been looking for,
    and then goes with you everywhere
    like a shadow or friend.
    Naomi Shihab Nye

    What I know for sure, is that without the years and decades of sorrow, I would not recognize kindness.

    Kindness, again such a simple word, but it is the gate to love.

  • Trajectory of my life.

    Going to sleep last night with tears drying on my cheeks, after feeling the feelings of being a child with no one at your back, to feel the absence of protection of safety, and feeling the feeling of free falling with screams and no landing, I awoke to wondering who has my back now.

    I understood that most of my over dramatic ways is due to the fact that I have been unhealed, and that I have been healing as I walk with my daughter in what I call abuse, and how as I watch others respond, I am again plunged back 45 years and get to see and feel the dynamics of my own childhood.

    The present day actions are bringing forth my unexpressed feelings and giving me the chance to voice them now, letting my little girl say what she needed to say, feel what she needed to feel.

    Yet, my thought as I went to sleep last night, was who has my back now?

    Who is supporting me, who is standing with me and walking my walk?

    Am I living with people who are for me or against me?

    Frightened I felt alone again, almost childlike yet with adult options.

    I can flee; I can go where no one can hurt me.

    Confused about leaving or staying, I fell asleep.

    This morning I began writing and became more confused, so I went to my room with the heater running for yoga, and was hit directly that here, this is the warm caring I need, and then quickly felt that, I am the one I am waiting for.

    I am the one who cares for me, who will bring me to places that I need to be, allow me to speak when I need to speak…

    I am my own mother, I love and care for me.

    I have my back.

    While inside I felt the desperate need of wanting to be cared for, it would actually be relying on others for my needs, wanting them to take care of me, to be a child again.

    Wanting to feel like a child being taken care of is going backwards, reverting to childhood…

    It is my job to heal me, to feel and separate the emotions from childhood and those from today, to not mix my anger towards my mother with my husband, to keep the plays in their own era.

    The degree of separation is huge.

    Knowing that I can set the stage, make my life comfortable, that I am strong enough to watch my own back, and have the courage to speak my words, always, is huge. That I can withstand deep sadness, grief and sorrow, that I can still find my inner balance and core, that I can muddle through until clarity can be found, that I am healing and dealing and being who I am coming from whence I came.

    A woman whose childhood left scars she now has to deal with along with the raising her children, even when they dovetail, and I am asked to flow between child and mother, the wounded and the healer, the caretaker and the needy, I make it, I deal, I survive the ride down the rapids of emotions and character changes.

    What a dance, to be playing all parts, and feeling their psychological damage and or healing, repairing as I go…while growing new emotional strength leaves me exhausted and exhilarated.

    My inner body feels like it has been churned up and shot through with huge holes, bruised and achy in the feelings that run through me.

    I feel inside like I ran back-to-back marathons and carried my daughters and generations with me, that I was solving the puzzles and correcting movements, re-writing my life’s script.

    And in doing so, will change the trajectory of my life.

  • I write so I can listen.

    In the Little White church on Finlandia’s campus a poet spoke, his words didn’t rhyme but instead they took us on mini tours into the complex moments on his personal journey. (Randy Freisinger)

    He described his style as narrative and was introduced as an accessible poet, and it didn’t seem it required nothing of us.

    All we had to do was sit back and listen to his tales of youthful freedoms turning naiveté into knowing or be an eavesdropper watching life speed out of control, to the silent wisdom of aging it’s secret never told, into viewing prejudice from where we were grown.

    These wonderful narratives were well written and easy to follow and I guess accessible, but what he didn’t tell us is that we would either feel an affinity with his desire to know or the screaming fear of not wanting to go where he’s been.

    It is one thing to be a silent observer into another’s life, but do you have the courage to openly and loudly explore your own?

    Can you tell a narrative of your life, the troubled spots and not just give us details of the sunny days?

    Will you give to me the places that brought you to your knees and then how you managed to stand back up?

    How deep does your narrative go?

    How much of yourself do you know?

    I felt affirmed as I listened to him.

    I understood that writing doesn’t rhyme in my narrative either, it has its own unique style and it’s own individual way of speaking to me. I write and I listen, I ask and am told.

    I have an intimate relationship with writing and I believe that it trusts me as well, that I will write what needs to be written and I will tell my tale no matter how uncomfortable or scared I am, I will put words to paper and my truths will be known.

    Writing has been my most honest friend; it has given me the courage to face what I didn’t want to face, to speak the unspeakable and to know more than I needed to know.

    It is the oddest thing; it brings me where I don’t want to go yet I am eager to arrive. It tells me things I don’t want to hear yet I am an eager listener.

    I left that little church once again knowing that I am a writer, that I have a narrative to tell.

    I write so I can listen.

  • Go with the Flow.

    United we stand united we fall, divided we stand divided we fall…are two phrases that ran around in my head as I laid my weary brain down to sleep.

    There has been a humming of difference going on in our home, a vague and nagging two party rule.

    This split difference seemed to be two strong individuals doing what they felt was right for them and it didn’t affect the atmosphere within our home, for our individual expressions were directed to those who did not live with us.

    Sure we had awkward uncomfortable moments, but they would only arrive when say a party was to be attended and we both didn’t go…yet we both could please ourselves.

    Me by staying home, and them by going, two drastically different responses to one event.

    It seemed to be this great wide-open free space of self-expression and allowing, and it was.

    What happens if our differences fall into our own home, where a person in our relationship changes and our responses are different?

    It became crystal clear to me that we were at a cross roads, both individually and as a team.

    The individual harmony of our home is tipping and sliding and churning over the way we both deal with actions that go against our moral code.

    My daughter’s changing actions have set in motion and are displaying our stark contrasts, where we are both sitting in a very tight spot.

    A spot that we both drew comfort in and it allowed us to be ourselves, we may be asked to leave.

    What we are being asked is to stand with that sentiment or to reverse and head in another direction; it truly is a turning point in our relationship.

    If my daughter continues in the direction she seems to be heading in, she will also change the direction our marriage, it will be the trigger that goes off and we will then be asked to change as well.

    She is the key that will turn this all.

    Our response is the echo and the reply and what I know from past behaviors, we answered differently.

    Can we form as a team and come up with an answering response that will honor both of us?

    I see the looming bends in our river, the rapids that will require each of us to hold to our course and see not one boat called family, but three different canoes.

    I see how the current in each of our lives may lead us down separated journeys, how the potential for parting is strong, how our differences become stronger not weaker, how their forces propel and repel.

    Within each of us lies our sense of self, our value and self worth and that alone is the motor that steers our choices, speaks our voices, and their clamoring for individual power drowns out the unity we once had.

    It isn’t the direction that they are heading in, or the rapids beneath them, but rather the integrity within each boat, the honesty and character that directs these boats in their direction.

    It seems that the Universe pulls them toward like-minded boats; our separation isn’t what the heart wants, but rather what our actions lead.

    The freedom that I lovingly gave that had us all happy in our separate boats, is now coming to bear.

    There is a fork in the river now, a change in the stream, a curve that bends their lives from mine… what I can’t know for sure is will they take the curve or change something inside of them.

    It isn’t me, but the river of life and how you change or it changes you.

    At the end of the day, I am a lady of my own character who has no choice but to follow where it leads…reality wins only but 100% of the time, it is futile for me set my canoe against it.

    This is what happened last time, six years ago, where my canoe didn’t go where the rest all went, where the river bent, and my character simply couldn’t go with the flow against the river of reality.

    I see my daughter’s canoe swirling lost in the struggle against the rivers flow, not wanting what is and lying to make it right, twirling in the swirling waters going against life’s truth, trying to make something right out of what is wrong.

    I have seen this branch of the river before, I have watched as many family members’ canoes got stuck in the madness of seeing an illusion and following.

    My shouts fall short and are lost in the waters of time that race by, telling them it is useless to fight what is.

    Now this time, the illusion has my daughter in its grips, the fantasy that is but a mirage above the river, and I can’t seem to break the spell that will plunge her back into seeing what is.

    And I can’t know the strength and conviction she has with this mirage and how far will she follow it and for how long, and if she does, what will my husband do?

    Will his canoe ride with her?

    Will his words to fall short?

    Will she hear us as we shout; will she trust the mirage or her old reality?

    Where will these three canoes go? Which ones will fight reality and who will go with the flow?

  • You can feel its worth.

    While tossing around in my head conversations about the differences between going into the Light and heading into the Darkness boggle my mind.

    How it is that a person loses direction, how do their maps get turned upside down, how instead of growing brighter they can actually become very dark and NOT even know it or maybe more true, is not know how to stop it.

    That their life blood is drained and they are actively involved in the letting go and letting it drip out, drip by drip, bit by bit.

    Their vital life energy leaves and they don’t even know it.

    The passions die, the love changes, inside of them has been an energy transplant and they are totally unaware.

    This is very scary to me and yet very much understandable.

    For if a perpetrator or abuser does his job well, you will not even feel your self leave, his sweet words and wonderful attention dances before your eyes, and like a magician, he switches your energy to his.

    Once the switch has been made, you have to work like Hell to bring back your bright energy, your innocence, your passions, good energy, self worth, self esteem, love.

    I see my daughter now as one who is lost in the sea of darkness inside of her, and she doesn’t even know who is the bad man who stole this, who came in and courted her while draining all that was good from her.

    If after the first time you do not tell, you believe you are now his equal, and his lure and charm hard to resist, his needing you a drug that keeps you dumping more and more good into.

    I am not certain, but feel that only abuse does this.

    That you come in as Light and can have it stolen away…

    The little boy with Oprah who was overly sensitive to the darkness, knew that Darkness FEEDS off of the Light.

    This sounded weird to me, but it literally swallows whole, kindness, love, compassion, caring, it has a voracious appetite.

    Darkness doesn’t see who you are, just your good energy that it needs to survive.

    I had to stop feeding the monster, to stop giving up my life for its happiness, its peace and its joy.

    The Light energies try feeding the monster to make it brighter, to make it happier; to make it more loving, and all it does is suck you dry.

    That little boy also said that the dark energies can come to you as Father, brother, sister, friend, that it isn’t some monster.

    Dr. Jill Bolte-Taylor also suggests that we are responsible for the energies we bring into a room.

    I believe that abused people abuse people, that hurt people hurt people.

    What seems we need is to heal our own pain, to be the one, to be the caretaker of our own energies, to stop blaming others for how we feel, and to harness our own Light.

    As well as being responsible for another’s happiness, peace, love or joy.

    If we can separate ourselves and not be sucking the life blood from each other, and instead be Light keepers within ourselves, the world would be a much brighter place.

    My daughter seems to have allowed another to extinguish her Light and what I want most is for her to be her own Light keeper.

    To hold it dear.

    Yet, maybe you have to lose something before you can feel its worth.

  • Until she can find her own.

    The hardest part of being a mom is when your child takes an exit that you didn’t see coming and they seem to disappear from the usual landscape and it leaves you separated.

    And I am not even sure what exit she took, where she is or what her intentions are, just that she has left the lane of what was and is now heading down a road that neither of us are familiar with.

    As I continue to travel down my regular road, off to the side is this other lane of unfamiliar nagging at me, this road from my view is full of potholes and hairpin curves with disappearing drop-offs and my daughter seems blind to all its hazards.

    I am not certain if she is at a wayside unsure or if she is going forward with a full head of steam.

    I am not even sure what is making me uneasier, her being on that road or not knowing if she is sitting down in wonder or going further into its complicated bends.

    Our voices have been silenced. But all that seems to be happening now is a silent movie, where the drama continues, but I can’t hear the words.

    The not knowing is far worse, I believe than knowing.

    In the knowing, I know and can deal.

    It is like her life has slipped from my view.

    This almost seems like the far end of a spectrum, one being you are doing too much in a child’s life, overtaking it and this is the complete opposite, where you are completely taken out.

    In the middle of the spectrum are two people who allow the other their lives, we share and explore and understand their individual journeys.

    I am wondering how to hook our roads back up, how to join them together in a way that honors and gives space, in a way that respects our differences, but allows us to trust each other.

    Is there a way two people can be together on two different roads?

    As women we have lots in common and I am sure it is harder when I have more experience and I have been her superior as her mother for all these years, but is there a bridge that we can stand upon and share our views?

    I will have to let go of my fears and my ‘know it all’ attitude and let her show me the landscape of her new world, I will have to be a visitor to a foreign land.

    It truly feels like two distinct worlds.

    Yet I believe and feel that I have traveled the world she is going into, so it isn’t that foreign to me, perhaps it is only new and exciting to her, she is the foreigner not I.

    What is so perplexing is that you never leave reality, this is an inward journey, you are traveling away from your essential self.

    Away from your morals, your values, your worth, your self esteem, your dreams, your passions, your soul. Into a world of secrets, lies and deceit…heading towards a self that is unfamiliar, foreign.

    It is the road to no you.

    You are being lured down this road by a friendly face that is the façade of negative energies, manipulating you with false promises and pretty lies.

    If she were to travel this road alone, He would be her only guide.

    What I want is to walk with the two of them and give the real story, like Paul Harvey’s ‘the rest of the story’.

    Yet he knows and perhaps she knows too, that I will be the story wrecker, I will unveil the pretty lies and unravel the promises and make them as they are empty.

    So what scares me the most is that my familiar voice will be drowned out by his, that she will tune me out and turn a deaf ear to my words and cling to his.

    Her life in its innocence doesn’t have a voice of her own.

    I am sure she feels the pull between him and I, both of us wanting her. And what I want the most is for her to have a separate voice from both of us, but I don’t feel she has one for her self as yet. I see her as a girl who confused and twisted and wants to have love and attention but it comes with such a price tag, her self worth.

    I can almost understand the twist between what he says and how she feels.

    His promise land is a secret place and it can’t reach the light of day.

    In order for her to travel down his road, she lies to me.

    What I want most is for the lies to stop.

    Lies to herself and lies to me, both are taking a toll on her.

    It is so telling to see what lies can do to your spirit, you can literally see her growing darker.

    The truth will set your Spirit free!

    The two roads I see in my minds eye is the road of lies and the road of truth. One road darkens and leads you away from self and the other will support and Lighten who you are.

    You wonder what makes some travel into the darkness and what makes others travel towards the Light. What decides this and can they make a U-Turn?

    I will do as any good mother or women who see another descending into the darkness will do. I will give her my voice until she can find her own.

  • Spoiled Brat?

    Sarah Ban Breathnach writes in her book, “Moving On,” let’s take a fresh look at the word that saps our strength often:

    Scared.

    “What difference do it make if the thing you scared of is real or not?” wonders Toni Morrison. Fair enough question. Woman have always know how to comfort the fears of others; we just don’t remember to use the same tender, loving, tactics on ourselves. So the next time you feel a random panic attack starting, take a deep breath, and transpose the “a” and the “c” in “scared” and you’ll find not only another word but a world of difference. You’ll uncover the

    Sacred

    Doesn’t that make you feel better already? It works for me, every time. I’d be willing to bet the house that your sacred, like mine, is very close – the walls surrounding you or the floorboards supporting you, even if they need a good scrub. The best definition I ever heard of fear is “False Events Appearing Real.” When I am anxious I notice that my fears seem to be speculative future-tense marauders. Will there be enough? What will I do? How will I cope? The best way I know how to disarm such fear is by keeping a Gratitude Journal. A Gratitude Journal is a polite, daily thank-you note to the Universe- and a reminder to yourself of the very real blessings you have now. In this moment. You know how insulted you are after you’ve knocked yourself out for your kids and all you get in return is surly silence. What am I raising you probably wonder, a bunch of brats? Well, an ancient spiritual axiom teaches us, “As below, so above.”

    Because you’re not spoiled rotten, at the end of every day write down five things or moments you experienced for which to be thankful. Small pauses that brought a smile or a sense of relief during the day. The kindness of somebody holding your place in the post office line when you have a lot of packages to get from the car. The plumber showing up on time. Fitting in to last summer’s shorts. A hug from a friend. A fortune cookie with just the right message. Saying no to a bake sale without guilt. Easily switching carpooling days. Getting an extension on the deadline. Better yet, meeting the deadline, Phew!

    We think it’s the big moments that define our lives – the promotion, the new baby, the renovated kitchen, the wedding. But the narrative of our lives is written in the small, the simple and the common. The overlooked. The discarded. The reclaimed. Life is not made up of minutes, hours, days, weeks, months, or years, but the moments. You must experience each one before you can appreciate it.

    Whether you are chopping carrots, shampooing your hair, writing a memo, making love, talking on the phone, walking the dog, or eating an apple, savor those sensations involved. All of those moments, whether happy, routine, or even painful are Life’s heartbeats.
    Sarah

    In the past six years I have been made to be much more sensitive to each of life’s heartbeats, to feel that which is in reality now, and even how life seems to be lived on a pinhead of time, how it literally is the heartbeat of life.

    This moment, the one we are breathing in is where life happens and to be grateful or even to see all that arrives is overwhelming.

    I love how she says we could be like spoiled brats and not even pay attention to all that the Universe gives us each day.

    Yesterday while delivering mail in the high winds and whiteout conditions, I focused on the black bare roads at times, and was so grateful to see their blackness in midst of swirling white. “Thank you black roads!”

    When you begin to look for things to be grateful for, you will find more and more grateful things.

    I will just watch how I go about my days, how I approach or leave little moments in time, and I a grateful child or a spoiled brat?