What’s good in your life this weekend? Go small and go grateful for anything that brings you joy! See how long you can stay with that joy. The better you feel, the better you’ll be capable of helping someone else to feel!
The gratitude list here so far this weekend:
1. cheerful tableware
2. scrumptious summer peaches
3. neighbors who share their farmers market finds with us!
4. sharing our gratitude with others
In recent weeks I’ve been thinking of the fondness I feel for southern magnolia trees with their large, sometimes ground skimming limbs, thick shiny leaves, and elegant yet substantial blossoms. This was a solo exploration in fondness and I thought too how lovely it would be to have sight of a magnolia from one of my regular windows. About two weeks after thinking this, a neighbor of mine asked about sharing one or two trees with me. What kind of trees were these? Magnolia! How fortunate.
What may happen in your experience if you don’t rush to answer yourself and instead allow room to be answered?
The more we are able to hold a space for ourselves, the more we become a presence in which others can also flourish. — Alana Fairchild
How can you hold space with loving kindness for yourself today? What’s one shift or release that would allow you to be absolutely present with the glorious being that is you, even if only for a few moments – what does that look and feel like?
An activity for presence-ing:
If you have an apple to work with physically, that is fantastic, but this can also be done with your knowingness of an apple through past experiences and visualizing.
Hold an apple in your hands. Rotate the fruit in your palms and feel the flesh on your fingertips. Notice the weight of the apple. Notice the color of the apple. Notice the stem and leaf or absence of those.
How does the apple smell? Notice the space between your nose and the apple as you smell. Take a few breaths in, with the apple at your nose and mouth. Notice the breath at the tip of the nostril. Notice the breath as it moves into the nasal passage. Notice the breath in your body.
Take a bite of the apple. Let the apple stay in your mouth as you notice the shape and the touch on your tongue. Slowly chew and notice the sound, the taste, and the texture. What do you notice about the sound as you continue to chew this first bite? What do you notice about the taste and texture as the fruit is made smaller and ready to swallow?
When you swallow, notice the sensation of the food moving along the esophagus and toward the stomach if that sensation is available to you and notice if it isn’t. There is no should be, only what you experience.
Breathe in with the apple at your nose and mouth again before the next bite. Continue on with slow consumption and deep noticing, taking time to fully presence with the fruit.
Guided Apple Script
While this week unfolds for you, remember to move through or process life with perfectionism and a false sense of omniscience at bay. Allow yourself room to be imperfect so that your original self can come forward in genuine expression. Keep curiosity about you, a little clumsiness even, and some room for error. You may find that room provides the opportunity to grow into a way of being that is far beyond what you thought possible.
Be with what is available to you now and let movement stem from there. Move as best you can and deem that as perfect instead of some malevolent practice of perfectionism suggested by an overculture that would bend you from your natural expression.
What if as you go through whatever happens today or tomorrow or maybe the next, you see it all as only an experience? Let every moment be seen as an experience.
In previous posts it’s been suggested to see it all as lessons, but that can tie in negative or positive energies and it seems to be more often negative when we call something a lesson. What if instead, everything today and for longer if you like, is just an experience; it’s not good or bad; it’s not right or wrong. Your only aim would be to let yourself have experience without judgement. (It could be helpful to apply this idea to past experience too if there’s heaviness involved.)
How will it look if you are able to let poise be your power and nonresistance your grace in what you experience?
“Sometimes you will never know the value of a moment, until it becomes a memory.“ – Dr. Seuss
If you can look at each moment coming to you as valuable, the moments may be embraced more fully. Perhaps if you can bring a little more awareness into this day, the experiences that come to you will be richer and met with a greater capacity to hold that richness.
Be careful with comfortable
Challenging moments can become frozen in the abyss of your subconscious mind. When these things are ready to surface, who is to say what will trigger or bring awareness to the moments that may have been lodged deeply when you were too saturated to recognize their weight or to honor processing. In noticing the impact of continued containment, you may be able to enter a time period of release. You may find recognition of triggers placed at the most inopportune times, in everyday conversations, or in activities you had anticipated with hopefulness.
People experience difficult memories for many different reasons. You don’t have to have had an abusive childhood, lost a spouse, battled a life threatening disease, been through divorce, or anything to this degree to have felt trauma or loss. Being human includes a variety of emotions and experiences. Life is not about getting by squeaky clean.
Honoring the process of bringing what is difficult into the light may mean that you will feel uncomfortable. You may have to rock the boat and make some waves within yourself or in the external. Someone may not like what you have to say or do to honor your process, voice, and inner light.
If inner reflection is something you’re finding more time for now or would like to explore, it could be helpful to recognize the benefit of feeling uncomfortable. Discomfort may not be something you seek, but it may seek you for positive change; don’t avoid discomfort, if facing discomfort could ultimately grow you stronger.
With time, you may thrive and blossom because of what made you uncomfortable.
As you head into this week, how can you think about ways to manage your expectations? Expectations can directly impact happiness. If you’re seeking what feels honest, real, or true as your host of happiness, you may be able to get to that highly regarded emotion more frequently.
A fill in the blank exercise for this weekend…
There are so many ways to define yourself and you can intentionally choose what you’d like to see follow the words I AM as you create your own truth by putting these words on replay in your mind. Aim to say whatever positive affirmation you choose 108 times each day until you feel them as your truth and after if you’d like.
I AM … enough.
I AM … so lucky!
I AM … surrounded by supportive and caring people.
I AM … full of intuitive wisdom.
These are suggestions to get you rolling in the direction of whatever matches you at this moment, but trust yourself to know what words are in the highest expression of you.
Presence and Positivity 