The other morning as I woke and looked out my window to the
garden and the woods beyond, I saw……..nothing.
No movement. No squirrels. No birds.
No rustling leaves. No Bunny
Rabbit. Nothing.
Not a whole lot going on in the dead of winter. No distractions. No neighbors wandering by. Quiet.
Stillness. The season of
rest.
So this theme of emptying continued to sit with me again
this week. What better time to look
inside then when nothing is competing for my attention on the outside.
So I, like most of us, have a junk drawer………………
Well, to be honest, I actually have two. Yikes!
Neither one started out with the intention of being a junk
drawer. The intention was “This drawer
will be for those items needed near the telephone.” On our move in day I mindfully placed a few
pens, pencils, tape, glue, a notepad and a few other items all neatly lined up in
the drawer. But then life happens.
When things enter the home and I don’t know what to do with
them or I sense that maybe someday I might need them, they are placed in the
drawer. What started as a few rubber
bands has snowballed into 100 rubber bands of every size and shape…just in case
there is a rubber shortage. The box of
straight pins that somehow always seems to empty itself into the drawer
requiring me to retrieve them one by one with my fingernails and the patience
of a saint…because you never know when there will be another wedding or prom
where I am asked to pin on the boutonnieres.
And my favorite, no less than 40
loose keys, unlabeled and looking very sad as they line the bottom of the
drawer……but of course when my son loses his car key, not one darn key in there
is of any help as we end up calling the car dealership.
We are very adept at bringing things in. I have enough batteries now to power the
street in the next blizzard! But not quite
as good at letting things go.
Our minds can easily become that other junk drawer.
The practice of emptying is one of mindfulness. Allowing things into our lives with the
inhale, being with them fully, and then just as easily letting them flow out on
the exhale. So that “we” remain uncluttered….able
to experience what is here for us right now without connecting it with what
happened in the past or our expectations of the future.
There are many definitions of mindfulness. I liked this combination of two of them:
A mental state achieved by focusing one's awareness on the present
moment, while calmly acknowledging and accepting one's feelings, thoughts, and
bodily sensations Mindfulness involves acceptance, meaning that we pay attention to our thoughts and feelings
without judging them—without believing, for instance, that there’s a “right” or
“wrong” way to think or feel in a given moment.
Without judgment.
Without attachment. Without
getting stuck.
As challenging as it is to let go of the physical items that
no longer serve us (oh, but maybe I will need that once I have grandkids!), the
emotions we hold on to are even tougher.
Without judgment. We
judge constantly. I like this, this is
bad, she is mean, that book is badly written, if only they took better care of
themselves, and on and on. That running
inner dialogue as we label what we see and experience. Watch yourself this week. See if you can catch yourself when
judging. Let it go with an exhale and look
with new eyes at the situation or person.
Simply see what is there if even for a moment. Things just “are”.
Releasing an old anger, or finally forgiving, can feel like we
are somehow saying that what happened was ok.
That we are letting the other off the hook for something that was wrong.
It is so hard to do. Part of our identity becomes tied to that
anger. But that anger, just like that large roll of
masking tape that I never use, only takes up precious space and keeps us from
being able to close the drawers of life properly.
It is no different when letting go of something beautiful. In fact it can be even harder…..releasing
that time of life which seemed to be “the best”, a true love, or the need to bring back memories on a daily
basis. The sense that if we let go somehow
they will no longer exist. But they will….
And at the even deeper level of the soul.
As we clear the junk drawers of our lives, we become emptier and we gain clarity. Seeing what is truly meaningful. We
live more presently.
A friend sent me this cartoon last week. It sums it up…..
The emptier I become….the fuller life gets,
SARAH
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