Today was a beautiful chilly day in Washington, and since I had the day off, I decided to walk my errands and appointments. I relished the wind blowing in my hair and walking through several different neighborhoods, each with its own distinct character, as I wended my way through the city. From the dentist to coffee to brunch at the gluten-free bakery and then to a massage and eventually home, I revelled in the present.
Yet even as I was in the present, I think there were reflections playing unconsciously in the back of my mind. In the complete relaxation of the massage and the peaceful, sunny walk home, the ideas made their way into consciousness. What started as a seed from yesterday's blog post "Celebration" had sprouted into a fully formed thought.
Goals rob us of the present. They leave us feeling as we don't have enough or aren't enough. Implicit in having goals is the dissatisfaction with where we are. If we just reach that goal, then everything will be wonderful. At least, until we reach it, and then we will need another goal to chase. If I'd been trying to achieve something today, I would have missed the wonder of the day.
Almost as I had the thought, I recalled a conversation that I'd had with a marketing consultant in the depths of the dot.com bust, who was trying to help me jump-start my consulting firm after the devastation that the economy had wrought on it. When we were attempting to define the "sweet spot" of my coaching to communicate what made my work different, I'd said, "My clients have achieved every goal they ever set and still feel empty." That was just not a suitable response with which she could work.
"Why," she asked, "would someone want to hire a coach if they've achieve every goal they ever set?"
Smiling to myself, I replied, "Because they feel empty."
I'm sure I've had similar thoughts before, but today they connected differently. I'm not certain that I've ever communicated that I coach people on being present, but I believe that is what I do. As I look back over my intentional living intensives, three-day coaching intensives that I guided in the 1990s and early 2000s, every unique activity designed for each client was somehow helping him or her come home to the present. To be happy in the "just being."
Suddenly, I wanted to do the happy dance. At once I knew why I've often so bristled at goal-setting, even when clients often expected goals. My sweet spot is helping people be present to the miracles that present themselves when we are just being in the present. I want to help them, and by extension, myself, be awake to what the Universe is offering up when we let go of our goals. Today I was delighted that I had no goals.
When I have a relatively unstructured agenda, gorgeous weather, and no expectations of me, I am really pretty good at being in the present and taking in the everyday miracles. My spiritual journey at this point in my life seems to be learning how I do that when I have a half dozen very senior executives with expectations on my time and back-to-back meetings for eight to nine hours in each day. But, that is for another day. Today I loved the miracle that was my day.
Showing posts with label everyday miracles. Show all posts
Showing posts with label everyday miracles. Show all posts
Thursday, February 18, 2016
Saturday, March 29, 2014
Life's Little Miracles
Today I visited my balcony again, and, quite to my surprise, bulbs are shooting up everywhere. Where there were none yesterday, one was five inches high. I should have been able to see it growing if I'd been watching carefully. Many other shoots had burst through the soil as well, boldly forcing winter to yield to spring.
Intellectually, I knew this would happen; something similar occurs every year about this time. Yet every time it is a miracle unfolding before my eyes. My mind--my memory--cannot capture and recall the true wonder of it all. The best I can do is some kind of single-dimensional, black and white version of a 3D bursting with color miracle--a true miracle--that I experienced today.
Life is full of miracles--everyday miracles. Most of them are eclipsed by activities that distract us from the wonders around us.
Our bodies totally replace themselves every 13 months. Yet even as they do, we retain our uniqueness. Our bodies have the same peculiarities, aches, and pains, and I have the same mop of curls I've had since I was a toddler, yet every one of them is new each year.
Having coffee with a new friend consumes five hours like they were an instant. There is a magical familiarity though you never met before. A play date with an old friend unwinds perfectly and totally without conscious intention. Conversations with my college roommate always pick just as though we'd talked yesterday when it may have been a year...and they've been doing that for decades. When I think about them, all of these are miracles.
As a dancer, I've had dances with people that were other worldly. In one case a Viennese waltz unfolded so effortlessly and flawlessly that I am sure we must have been dancing that dance together for lifetimes. Although my partner and I danced together for seven years, that one dance stands out in my memory a dozen years later. In another case an Argentine Tango was pure magic with a partner I only ever danced with one time. A theater arts performance left me sure that I actually could fly.
Of course, the most perfect miracles are those of love: the pride of a parent at a child's accomplishment or the care of an aging parent who has become dependent on the child, who once depended on him or her. And, of course, there is nothing quite as wonderful as the equally miraculous gaze in the eyes of new love or the mellowed, appreciative look of matured love.
Everyone of these is a miracle. Too often the miraculous moments slip through a crevice in time, not unlike my memory of spring bulbs coming up anew each year. In tensions of other moments, the miraculous ones may totally disappear from memory. I regret that I have learned too late to savor those moments before they slipped away, many lost forever.
Yet there is a miracle greater than all if these, and that is being able to start anew each day with the wisdom gained in all the days before. Tomorrow I can start again with new appreciation for every miracle with which I am blessed and truly savor each.
All of these are truly miracles.
- Posted using BlogPress from my iPhone
Intellectually, I knew this would happen; something similar occurs every year about this time. Yet every time it is a miracle unfolding before my eyes. My mind--my memory--cannot capture and recall the true wonder of it all. The best I can do is some kind of single-dimensional, black and white version of a 3D bursting with color miracle--a true miracle--that I experienced today.
Life is full of miracles--everyday miracles. Most of them are eclipsed by activities that distract us from the wonders around us.
Our bodies totally replace themselves every 13 months. Yet even as they do, we retain our uniqueness. Our bodies have the same peculiarities, aches, and pains, and I have the same mop of curls I've had since I was a toddler, yet every one of them is new each year.
Having coffee with a new friend consumes five hours like they were an instant. There is a magical familiarity though you never met before. A play date with an old friend unwinds perfectly and totally without conscious intention. Conversations with my college roommate always pick just as though we'd talked yesterday when it may have been a year...and they've been doing that for decades. When I think about them, all of these are miracles.
As a dancer, I've had dances with people that were other worldly. In one case a Viennese waltz unfolded so effortlessly and flawlessly that I am sure we must have been dancing that dance together for lifetimes. Although my partner and I danced together for seven years, that one dance stands out in my memory a dozen years later. In another case an Argentine Tango was pure magic with a partner I only ever danced with one time. A theater arts performance left me sure that I actually could fly.
Of course, the most perfect miracles are those of love: the pride of a parent at a child's accomplishment or the care of an aging parent who has become dependent on the child, who once depended on him or her. And, of course, there is nothing quite as wonderful as the equally miraculous gaze in the eyes of new love or the mellowed, appreciative look of matured love.
Everyone of these is a miracle. Too often the miraculous moments slip through a crevice in time, not unlike my memory of spring bulbs coming up anew each year. In tensions of other moments, the miraculous ones may totally disappear from memory. I regret that I have learned too late to savor those moments before they slipped away, many lost forever.
Yet there is a miracle greater than all if these, and that is being able to start anew each day with the wisdom gained in all the days before. Tomorrow I can start again with new appreciation for every miracle with which I am blessed and truly savor each.
All of these are truly miracles.
- Posted using BlogPress from my iPhone
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