Three Truths and One Wish

1. Sometimes I need to see myself the way someone else sees me. Sometimes that means I need to quiet my internal critic and see the way someone else loves and accepts me, listen to the way they honor what I do, feel their gratitude and kindness. Other times that means I need to interrupt my ego, its sense of my own importance and rightness, in order to see from someone else’s perspective the suffering I am generating.

2. It’s hard to be wrong. Especially when I try so hard to say the right things, to not make any mistakes, to be perfect. But when I’m wrong I have a choice. I can smash myself to bits or I can be kind, gentle, forgiving. I can try again, not give up, say I’m sorry.

3. “Every time I think someone has a hold on me, I realize I’m the one with the tight grip,” (Courtney Carver). The door to the cage is open, but I sit inside, not moving. In the most gentle way possible, I ask myself to relax, to let go. Sometimes it works, and sometimes it doesn’t.

One wish: May we practice honesty but temper it with kindness. Where there is tension, may we release it with our breath, relax it with our willingness to surrender, to let go.

image by Eric

1. This is my 1111th blog post on A Thousand Shades of Gray. There’s a particular kind of magic in that number. Some people say that it is “an invitation to open your eyes to the miracles all around that were already there that you weren’t seeing; an invitation to discover the infinite power and wisdom within you that is waiting to be tapped…a general invitation to move toward the inner joy and life fulfillment that’s possible for you.” An invitation to wake up, a reminder that you are inherently wise and compassionate, a request that you pay attention, a sign that you are not alone,

2. God is “whatever lifts your face out of the dirt,” (Elizabeth Gilbert). I find this incredibly comforting, so moving. It doesn’t let me entirely off the hook — it’s still up to me to get up, dust myself off, keep going, but in the moment when I am at my lowest, there is God, lifting my face out of the dirt, keeping me from giving up entirely.

3. I am capable of the deepest despair, but there is something in me that refuses to give up. I’ve never quite understood it, don’t know exactly what it is, but it’s always been there. No matter how hard things get, no matter how much I’ve been hurt, no matter how much I think about finding a way to escape for good, I keep going. It’s something stubborn and determined and certain. It believes that if I can just hang on until tomorrow, hold on for just one more moment or even one more breath, something will shift.

One wish: That when we are at our lowest, we experience the miracle of our face being lifted from the dirt, we know we are inherently wise and compassionate, we remember that we are not alone.