Beth's Ponderings
How do you
transition from one week to the next?
Leisurely and calmly, frantically and stressed out, or do you barely
notice and then wonder why the days/weeks/months all blur together and time
seems to be going by faster than you can blink?
Some people
desire to go on pilgrimages - whether to spiritual sites, or to those of famous
personages, or even just to a particular location that calls to them. For example, they long to walk where someone
they admire lived, touching the common everyday items the person used, and
seeing the area from the person’s vantage point, literally walking where that
person walked.
Yet, how many of us
fully walk in our own lives? Do we even
see what makes us uniquely special, and what we contribute to others?
I supposed it is a
bit like trying to tell a fish to notice the water it is swimming in. We are so immersed within our daily lives
that it is hard to step back and notice what we are even doing, yet, that is
exactly why it is important to do so.
One reason why it
feels like life is spinning out of control at such a frantic pace is because we
aren’t pausing enough. Scientists tell
us that we are hard-wired for the negative - as a survival mechanism - so it is
much easier to focus on what didn’t get done, what needs to get done, what
could happen, and, of course, what we dread will happen.
Yet, there is
another way to approach our lives. By
pausing and noticing our lives...by walking where we have walked, as it were.
Gratitude is a
choice. A choice to pause and
consciously look around and see what makes our lives uniquely our lives. It is a choice to consciously step back and
see what we have done, how we have touched others, how we have triumphed or
persevered, and how far we have come. It
is a choice to acknowledge who we are, as we are.
While Thanksgiving
is a time when we tend to collectively focus on gratitude, it is something we
could do at the end of our week to help us transition fully from one week to
the next. And, for an added benefit, why not make it a daily habitual way to
end each day.
Beth
Read the complete issue of The Chautauqua here: https://sites.google.com/site/thechautauqua25/home/October%205%2C%202018%20Chautauqua.pdf?attredirects=0&d=1
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