For those that don't know, I have been seeing a counselor for the past few months to help me sort out some things in my life. One of the things we are working on is Mindfulness and this book is a daily lesson in it. Even the subtitle reminds me of the mindfulness I need to follow "Having the Life You Want by Being Present to the Life You Have."
Today's entry had me thinking so intently that I wanted to share it with you. It seemed more than appropriate for the start of a new year and I hope you will find it as helpful as I do.
All Fall Down
It was a snowy night, and Robert was recalling the time two springs ago when he was determined to paint the family room. Up early, he was out the door, to the hardware store gathering the gallons of red, the wooden mixing sticks, the drop cloths, and the one-time brushes that always harden, no matter what you soak them in.
He mixed the paint outside and waddled to the door with a gallon in each hand, the drop cloth under his arm, and a wide brush in his mouth. He began to chuckle in telling what happened, "I teetered there for a few minutes, trying to open the door, not wanting to put anything down. I was so stubborn. I had the door almost open when I lost my grip, stumbled backward, and wound up on the ground, red gallons all over me."
At this point, he laughed at himself, as he has done many times, and we watched the snow fall in silence. I thought of his little story all the whole way home. Amazingly, we all do this, whether with groceries or paint or with the stories we feel determined to share. We do this with our love, with our sense of truth, even with our pain. It's such a simple thing, but in a moment of ego we refuse to put down what we carry in order to open the door. Time and time again, we are offered the chance to truly learn this: We cannot hold on to things and enter. We must put down what we carry, open the door, and then take up only what we need to bring inside.
It is a basic human sequence: gather, prepare, put down, enter. But failing as we do, we always have that second chance: to learn how to fall, get up, and laugh.
- Meditate on some threshold you are having trouble crossing in your life. It might be at work, at home, in a relationship, or the doorway to greater peace.
- Breathe steadily and look to yourself to see if you are carrying too much to open the door.
- Breathe slowly and with each out-breath put the things you are carrying down.
- Breathe freely now and open the door.
---taken from The Book of Awakening by Mark Nepo
I am putting down old hurts, old fears and old, outdated thoughts about my life. I am 41 and I have many things I want to do before I leave this earth but if I don't put down some of these things, I will never get them done and that is not acceptable to me any longer.
So what are your carrying that you need to put down
before you can enter the new year?
