It’s Not Just Doing A Duty………It Could Be Life Changing
The journey I am on at the moment is very hard but looking for the little bits of joy and acknowledging the small kindnesses given and received in my day is making it easier to move through and less painful to deal with.
Last year my daughter planted some Sweet Williams in the garden for the next 3 weeks afterwards we had days of torrential rain and they died without even having the chance to flower. The other day I was sitting in the garden looking around with misty eyes, feeling the sadness within me, when I looked down at the flower bed and there peeping through was a flower from the Sweet William plant, such a tiny flower yet it gave me a big message, “don’t give up, allow the rain to come because after the rain there will be sunshine and you will blossom”. I rushed into the house shouting my daughter to come and look, she simply shrugged her shoulders and said “oh nice” and went back into the house, but for me that one flower gave me a moment of pure joy and it has stayed with me since.
As I quieten my mind and block out the turmoil going on in there, I am beginning to notice the little joys around me, the smile of a stranger, the laughter of children, a word or phrase that someone says, I acknowledge that even if my spirits are lifted for just a passing moment there has been joy in my day no matter how small, it’s touched me, and if someone makes me smile I hold that smile in place for as long as I can even after I have gone on my way, I’m sure sometimes I must look a bit weird walking down the street on my own with a smile on my face.
Quite often clients ask how they can stop the hurt and the answer is replace it with joy, not some great big massive fun fest but start with the little bits and over time those little bits of joy will add up to make big bits.
You see we truly are in charge of how we feel, we choose how we feel. It is so easy to let sadness and hurt and anger rule our day completely, and take over our thoughts and feelings so we don’t see or feel anything else, but if you just step back and stop a minute and look around, you will see there are things and people, even strangers who can put joy back into your life even if it’s just the tiniest amount even if they don’t do anything different from normal, see it through different eyes.
If someone says hello to you or holds a door open for you, or the shop assistant smiles at you, then see it as someone giving kindness to you and acknowledge to yourself it was a nice thing for them to do, they didn’t have to do it and plenty don’t, then pass that kindness on to someone else, hold a door open for someone, smile at someone, take a few minutes to speak to someone about them, acknowledging kindnesses given to you and giving kindnesses to others will have an affect on you and your mood, but the best thing about doing this, is when you are lying in bed at night you can look back on your day and say “it wasn’t all bad today” and that is what will help you take another step forward tomorrow and who knows, maybe you helped someone take their next step.
Blessings.