~ A Joy Warrior's Journey
Be who you are, and sing it boldly.
Trumpet your song–
even when those who surround you
seem to be singing a wholly different tune.
From a distance, all of our songs
blend into one great harmony,
afloat in the infinite music
of the ever-perfect Yes.
Some things come with built-in smiles.
You know, kittens and puppies,
that sort of thing. They just make you
feel all better inside. Take these
flowers, for instance. Their yellow
just cancels out all your blue,
makes you believe in laughter
and light all over again.
Makes you feel how the Great Yes
genuinely loves us, whether
we deserve it or not.
Oh yes, they have lakes here, too,
shimmering bodies of fresh water
that reflect the blue sky and the green
of the forested hills that surround them.
Silvery fish swim in their waters, and geese
paddle past or bask on the shores In the grass.
And oh! The wildflowers that dance along
their edges. This is summer in its perfection!
Wish you were here!
Okay, summer; you win.
I admit that at first I was put off
by your incessant rains. And when
they ceased, I didn’t trust your dazzle,
seeing it as so much show, an act.
But now you have convinced me.
Your sincerity is everywhere, deep
in its greens, devoted in its endless
display of color. And at last
your warmth has penetrated
my understanding, and I want
nothing more than to sink
into your loving emerald arms.
Oh my! What big eyes you have,
Mr. Dragonfly! And how like a biplane
you seem to be with those papery thin
double wings. Are you from here?
Or did our flowers draw you from
an alien world, some imaginary
place far away where flowers
only come in black and white,
lacking the deliciousness of pink?
I think I get to make a wish on you,
just because you are so splendid.
And in return, let me invite you
to make a wish, too, perhaps
for pink summer flowers forever.
“It’s just going to be that kind of day,” my friend said as he got in my car. “Everything’s gone wrong.” He started on a litany of all the bothersome things that had happened since he got out of bed.
“Well,” I said, “I’m glad you got all that out of the way! Used up all your bad luck first thing. Now you can let it go and have a fine rest-of-the-day.” And he did. But if I hadn’t steered him to look at the possibility of a good day ahead, he might have gone on and on about his little clashes and misadventures.
Painful events produce mental movies of what happened, replays of the situation. They’re daydreams our minds create to help us realize that it was true, that it really happened and that it hurt. That’s a pretty common response to pain. It’s the first step toward accepting things, to getting to the point where we can say, however reluctantly, “It is what it is.”
The next step is figure out what you need to do next. What are some of your options? What’s most urgent? What direction do you want to go? You might still feel the raw pain, but it, too, is what it is—an injury of some kind, and injuries take time to heal. You let it sit there, acknowledging it, but accepting it as a part of your current experience. In the meantime, take a survey of your resources and start moving in the direction that your better self most wants to go, the one that makes the most sense.
But first, you’re in that place where you’re remembering what happened, trying to get a grasp on it and somehow make it different. There’s a trap here, though. If you play the movie over and over and over, you can get stuck in it. You can get so stuck that it becomes the focus of your reality. That’s when our daydreams become living nightmares.
Remember the phrase, “What you focus on expands?” It applies full force here. Your mind will always search for information to bring you when it knows you’re interested in something. If you’re looking at nothing but your mental movie about the hurtful thing that happened, your mind will bring you more and more ways that you were hurt like this in the past or might be hurt in similar ways in the future. That generates fear, anxiety, and avoidance strategies–none of which are helpful. In fact, your fear makes your brain think that looking out for danger is now a priority matter. It will point out all the signals it can find that you might be risking another blow. And there you are, stuck in the nightmare.
Now here’s the good news. You are the one who’s in charge of what’s playing in the theater of your mind. You’re running the projector that beams the movie onto the screen of your mind. If you can see that this movie has played over and over, you can look for a different movie to play. That lets you break the nightmare’s spell.
You might not be able to switch movies instantly. The nightmare one has dug itself into the screen of your attention and its drama has you hooked. But you can interrupt it as often as want by asking yourself a simple question like “What’s good about her/him/this mess?” or “What’s good about this present moment?” Questions like that take your brain by surprise. “A new game!” it says, happy to have a new assignment. And it will start looking for answers to your question. Robert Maurer, Ph.D,,says in his book One Small Step Can Change Your Life: The Kaizen Way, that you can start by asking your little question at leaset once a day, and keep it up every day for a couple weeks. Link asking it to brushing your teeth or drinking your morning coffee, or when you go to bed. You could also jot down the answers you get if you’re so inclined.
Gradually, looking for the good will become a habit, quieting and eventually replacing your nightmare. Your world will expand and brighten, your moods will shift to the enjoyable end of the scale. And it starts by asking a simple question: “What’s good here?”
Remember, what you focus on expands. Focus on asking yourself one little question at least once a day about what’s good, and see how the goodness grows.
Wishing you a week of surprising smiles.
Warmly,
Susan
Image by Gerd Altmann from Pixabay
The creek is all but dry now,
the rocks that make up its bed
exposed. Feeling the dry air
against their surfaces they remember
the high places from which they fell
ages ago, and before that, the eons
they spent inside the earth’s womb
until a thunderous tumult pushed them
upward through earth’s crust to touch,
at last, the sky. They recall the way
that trees grew between them,
winding their great roots in a living caress,
freeing them, one by one, to tumble
downward, to begin their long journey
through this so cool and wondrous home.
I am a dream collector. I gather your dreams and carry them high into the velvety sky. And there they float, warmed by the sun, charged by the electric sparks of a billion stars, drifting on the cosmic tides.
That’s where the dance begins. Your dreams begin to glide toward other’s dreams, drawn to those that share your heart’s desire. A hope for peace joins with another hope for peace in a shimmering web. A love of invention joins another one. Comfort joins comfort. Healing joins healing. And each dream in the network contributes its views to all the others, keeping its own identity, being enlarged by what the others give. And the whole is a wondrous ballet, and a song.
And just as raindrops fall when the clouds grow full, so do dreams descend back to earth and come true in the life of each dreamer, every one at exactly the right place and time, guided by a wisdom far beyond my own. But it is a downpouring of love, compassionate and joyous. And that is all I need to know.
Hey, pretty petunia, old friend.
It wouldn’t be summer without you, you know.
Why, I remember when I was only three
how you lined the path to the dirt-floored cellar
where Aunt Maybelle kept her wringer washer,
your scent mixing with the fragrance of soap
as she washed clothes, and how kittens played
their games of hide and seek beneath your blooms.
That long you’ve colored my summers,
well over half a century now. And still you’re with me,
smiling outside my kitchen door. I drink in your purple,
share the morning sun, and smile, remembering old friends.
A friend told me that if I see something
that I want to save in my memory,
to blink my eyes at it, deliberately,
as if my eyelids were a camera’s shutter.
It works for me. And when I use it,
I sometimes suppose that maybe
that’s what the earth is doing
when she closes her eyelids at night.
Remembering. Everything.
Just in case, overnight, it disappears.
I join her in her intention, carrying
with me as much as my soul can hold.
Just in case we’re the last ones ever
to visit this most amazing place.
You never know.