Moving From Chaos to Clarity
Are you walking around angry and resentful about life, current events? In this episode, we offer tips and ways to help you make better decisions. How we react in the moment when things aren’t going our way is an important noticing. If you can muster a “pause” in order to get clarity it will shift your reaction and help you move from chaos to clarity.
“I’ve learned that people will forget what you said, people will forget what you did, but people will never forget how you made them feel.”
~Maya Angelou
OPENING POEM:
Small Kindness By Danusha Laméris
I’ve been thinking about the way, when you walk down a crowded aisle, people pull in their legs to let you by. Or how strangers still say “bless you” when someone sneezes, a leftover from the Bubonic plague. “Don’t die,” we are saying.
And sometimes, when you spill lemons from your grocery bag, someone else will help you pick them up. Mostly, we don’t want to harm each other. We want to be handed our cup of coffee hot, and to say thank you to the person handing it. To smile at them and for them to smile back. For the waitress to call us honey when she sets down the bowl of clam chowder, and for the driver in the red pick-up truck to let us pass.
We have so little of each other, now. So far from tribe and fire. Only these brief moments of exchange. What if they are the true dwelling of the holy, these fleeting temples we make together when we say, “Here, have my seat,” “Go ahead — you first,” “I like your hat.”
YOUR INVITATION:
Pay attention to the people around you as you go throughout your day. How are you making them feel and how are they leaving you? Borrow a spiritual practice mentioned in the podcast to help you slow down, pause and gain clarity so you are better equipped to respond with small kindnesses.
CLOSING PRAYER:
Imagine a woman who believes it is right and good she is a woman. A woman who honors her experience and tells her stories. Who refuses to carry the sins of others within her body and life.
Imagine a woman who trusts and respects herself. A woman who listens to her needs and desires. Who meets them with tenderness and grace.
Imagine a woman who acknowledges the past's influence on the present. A woman who has walked through her past. Who has healed into the present.
Imagine a woman who authors her own life. A woman who exerts, initiates, and moves on her own behalf. Who refuses to surrender except to her truest self and wisest voice.
Imagine a woman who names her own gods. A woman who imagines the divine in her image and likeness. Who designs a personal spirituality to inform her daily life.
Imagine a woman in love with her own body. A woman who believes her body is enough, just as it is. Who celebrates its rhythms and cycles as an exquisite resource.
Imagine a woman who honors the body of the Goddess in her changing body. A woman who celebrates the accumulation of her years and her wisdom. Who refuses to use her life-energy disguising the changes in her body and life.
Imagine a woman who values the women in her life. A woman who sits in circles of women. Who is reminded of the truth about herself when she forgets.
Imagine yourself as this woman.
~ Patricia Lynn Reilly