Beautiful Sunset gift

Unwrapping Our Gifts

posted in: Community, Mindfulness | 0

I love to share inspirational words from others, and this week I’m grateful to my husband Tim (or JT as I like to call him) for his words of wisdom. Tim helps me to view things just a little differently, opening me up to new possibilities.

The Holiday season is past us now (an inner voice whispers, “finally”) and we now have time to reflect on gifts received and gifts given. So many cozy and comfy and fattening and useful and silly and impractical items have been exchanged and…..so much love has been shared in these days.

Some of the deepest felt and most enlightening gifts I’ve recently received did not come during the prescribed “Holiday Season” and did not come wrapped in colorful paper. None were cozy, nor comfy and certainly not silly. These gifts came wrapped in uncertainty, in fear, in sadness and, at least the suggestion of a dark future.

My go-to reaction when hearing difficult news is not to think of the “silver lining” or the mud that is needed for the lotus to grow or the impermanence of everything in my life. My go-to reaction is sadness, fear and a focus on a future filled with more of the same.

I really do believe that there is always a lesson in difficult news, a deeper, hidden-until-unwrapped insight that, at least hints at a silver lining and nudges me to see the value of “mud”. This news offers me the opportunity to live in this moment and not to get lost in the uncertainties of the future.

When I heard the news from my eye doctor that, if things continue the way they are going, I’d probably be blind in ten years I was lost in the darkness (literally and figuratively) of the future. Fortunately, over a few weeks I realized that every instant I was not “seeing” this present moment was a moment lost. If my sight was going to end in ten years, how many sunsets, how many beautiful flowers, how many loving smiles was I willing to lose? The answer to myself was, not many!

Now days, I will consciously look at trees, or a young child or a silly cat and really “see” them, working on making a permanent imprint in my brain. I am working to stretch out those ten years and if I have no more, I want an extensive file of images of my world.

In reality I too often take my sight, my senses in general, for granted, walking through life with little notice to what I am seeing, hearing or feeling.

My gift, unwrapped over time, was the awaking that I am surrounded by beauty and awe, that my time is limited and that I can take in every moment and make it a part of who I am.

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