Thought 21: Capturing Stillness

Someone once said that life is something that happens to you while you are making plans. I am in a bit of a lull at the moment. You know, one of those rare moments when emails aren't coming in; when projects have been temporarily put on a back burner; when friends are busy, or out of town, or not calling - one of those moments. It's not the norm, but the exception and I'm finding that I have to shake myself out of the habit of doing. I should be REVELING in this moment...rolling in it like a dog who just smelled the most amazing thing and wants to be covered in it...so why is it sooo hard to let go of the doing?

I find myself searching for things that will put a demand on me; feeling lost when there isn't something I haven't done...feeling incomplete without, as the poet Robert Frost put it, "having miles to go before I sleep". My heart wants to love this moment, this ceasing of doing. If anything, it comes as a sense of relief, of exhaustive gratitude for a break, yet the drive to make, to create, to push, pull, drive, understand, develop... it pokes at me incessantly. 

This moment of quiet is an opportunity to really connect with the "life" that is happening while I'm usually making plans. It is a time to be still and just be. The sense that I have that things will fall apart somehow if I am not doing, creating, ,making, becoming, is a lie because if I am gone tomorrow, MY world may no longer exist but THE world would continue without my driving it with my efforts. In the same instance I am absolutely positive that my efforts ARE making a difference, otherwise I would not be as committed as I am to contributing in my small way. Perhaps it is not so much my doing that would be missed but my unique perspective that lends dimensionality to the chaos that is the stuff that life is shaped from. 

Like a star in the heavens, we each twinkle for awhile and when that light goes out the totality of light is forever changed...These are the types of thoughts that this moment was made for.

Thought 20: Labor of Love

It's taken me 60 years to rest in my truth - Life should be a labor of Love.

Believe me, I tried it a LOT of different ways:
- Work hard and you get rewards.
- Give, give, give until you absolutely can't or don't have anything more left.
- Plan it and then stick to the plan.
- Don't even try, just let it happen.
- Let others tell you how to live and then at least you have someone to blame.

The years have peeled away the reasons, one by one, showing them for their misguided approach or failed founding principles.

When I was finally empty. When I finally let go. When I stopped thinking so long and doing so hard, Love found its way to my heart. It quietly entered in, and washed over my view of the world. 

It is simple now. It is Love based, and it just is. I don't have to try, I don't have to be anything or do anything. I can if I want to, but that is not the path of Love, it is simply a potential expression of it. When love entered, so did peace.

I still wrestle with my humanness, but it's more of a friendly arm wrestle now rather than a life or death, self or other struggle. 

Love embraces and that is enough.

With Love

Thought 18: Simple Gifts

Give yourself permission to be outrageously kind, irrationally warm, improbably generous and to feel the sheer joy and celebration in doing this.  If a day were to have a theme, this is certainly a great one. I see the benefits of a day spent like this of being very similar to the benefits that Shakespeare speaks about in his quality of mercy speech from Merchant of Venice:

The quality of mercy is not strained; 

It droppeth as the gentle rain from heaven Upon the place beneath. 

It is twice blest;
It blesseth him that gives and him that takes.

To be twice blessed is a win/win. Remember, a warm heartfelt hug provides the hugger and the huggee with a healthy burst of oxytocin which is a key hormone for promoting trust, bonding, and devotion - key to human connectedness. So every time you hug someone, think of it as your own personal act towards nurturing world peace.

Love and hugs,

Betsy