Is the need to be DOING robbing you of the magic of BEING?
How the stories we tell each other help us unfold from panic.
I could write this in the usual format, or should I say what is recommended by many a marketing coach in the self help industry. Which to give you an insider scoop goes a little something like this:
Attention grabbing headline.
Pain point - as in what a person might be “suffering” from. You're supposed to connect with the reader here.
Demonstrate Competency - hahahaha as in my competency in how I might solve your problem. I do have some 😜
Offer Service - which you guessed it is supposed to address the pain point and “solve” the problem. Which kind of feels a little sleazy - especially if it is heavy emotions .
Seems a bit off to just pop in your inbox, recall a load of trauma, and then sell you something.
Hahahahah a bit like those personal accident claim adverts you see on the tv.
In my eyes it seems to create a state of shock in us all. We all get pitched in this way ALL the time. It is worth remembering that, when you boil it down, the most valuable and desired human commodity of all is attention.
It requires you to make anything happen. The power in this way is always in our hands.
Begs the question…
How do we want to gain others' attention?
Do we really want to be “grabbed” in this way ourselves?
Or do we all yearn to share our attention, our presence with the world and with others.
This morning as I was sipping my morning coffee and attuning myself to the beauty of our back garden - which don’t get me wrong it is beautiful but it is also the harborer of forgotten jobs, beds and borders which need wedding and reminders of my own personal “should” be done list. You know…the one that exists in our minds alone, never ends and stands like a statue to all the dead ends of action that we have “failed” to complete. Or is that just me lol
As my mind ticked over and was about to slip shift into that spiral that we all know…
A pause presented itself, in the form of a snail crossing my path. He/She looked very confused, I noticed with interest because I could see them popping their head in & out quite quickly, for a snail at least.
I supposed to myself that it must be quite a lot of effort, almost painful, to pop your head back inside your own moist cocoon and expose it to the crisp, cold morning air over and over again.
Why do this Mr/Mrs snail I thought to myself.
As I wondered closer to my spiral friend, I noticed 6 or 7 seedlings from a dandelions on his face.
The kind that kids take joy in plucking from ground and blowing the microphone shaped seed boom all over the garden. The same kind I might add that adults should take time to pluck and blow too - just for the fun of it.
Looking like a white bearded mountain sherpa I respected that he must have traversed treacherous terrain upon his journey in the great garden of the back. That this place was an entire continent for a snail.
Gently, but with clear intent, I knelt down and removed each seedling from the front of this snail's face. Hesitant at first, then noticing the irritation relieving, this snail seemed to calm and the removal job was made all the more easy.
Once clear, the head was proudly exposed to the mornings unfolding, and the trajectory towards wherever this snail was going was resumed. Full steam ahead - into the next moment.
This is exactly what I thought to myself as I took another sip of coffee. The moment is here, and then gone, a new one, unfolding, requiring your participation to fully bloom, die and then be eternally reborn.
This was one of those summary moments that hits me every now again after big experiences.
A Magic Intermingling with nature's mysteries as we start to slow down, let go of having to know and melt into the life force within us and around us.
I’m talking “may the force be with you stuff”. Jedi skills. Yoda wisdom nuggets.
Thoughts seem to jump and flow freely when you get into stuff like this…
Senior Snail reminded me of the moment when I noticed the paper thin skin of a family friend I visited in the hospital a few days previous. How the beauty of her pierced my heart, her physical frailty somehow magnifying by contrast the purity of life force her bones still had running through them. Diana is 101.
I left that visit thinking what a gift it was. I had become agitated 10mins in as I had someone else to visit in the hospital that day, and as you may I know, hospital visits incur all sorts of reporting news and getting news - you can feel hard pushed for time and responsible for others emotions in all ways.
When I felt this agitation - I softened, relaxed, felt spirit around me and looked at Diana’s skin - it was what I immediately noticed when I chose to come out of my head, into the moment and into the world around me.
My thoughts subsided. I could almost feel the sensation of the skin, the passage of time - every smile, every tear, every movement etched into its history. My imagination fired up - as I calmed into my sense and presence, I let go of any need to be anywhere or KNOW anything.
That is when I could see.
That is when I was able to listen..
What was to be a 10min visit that day became 45mins of me being blessed by all these amazing stories. From the times of the Land Army during the war, her friends and those dear departed & her love and appreciation for our children. It was magic. She blows me away.
That beauty that I was witness too was some sort of magic tonic. The trajectory it put me on, the dandelion seeds it was able to remove from my consciousness allowed me to move through the day (and all the heavy emotions that hospital visits incur) with ease. Not just ease but creative energy too.
The world is constantly providing prompts, routes & avenues to find presence.
Trust me - it isn’t going to be found in the voice inside that would have you rush, or on your to do list or the mental list of SHOULD DO’S.
Those things represent stepping stones, markers and checkpoints but not ways of being. The magic in between the to-do’s is your birthright. The actual reason, as far as I can determine, why we are alive.
I’m always keen for the gift, the pearls and the diamonds of any given situation.
Beauty, for me, has always been my most efficient and awe inspiring compass to these gifts.
I saw a lot of beauty that day and the days following. Beauty that has brought yet another unfolding layer of depth to my life and my love.
I could have robbed myself of that time and I suppose I could have robbed Diana of it too. Seems criminal doesn’t it. Wasn’t it the stories that we came here for anyway?
To tell them. To share them. To live them.
We are part of that story if we choose to be.
That is why stories unlock a world of melted barriers, ignite a storehouse of forgotten dreams and lead us to the present of the moment in a way which makes our sense of playfulness flicker and come alive.
You are a cosmic storyteller - believe me if you are reading this you’ve got something going on inside you.
A story waiting to be told.
Please be aware of your thoughts, what you consume, the style of the story you are telling or being told.
The best stories leave you richer. More Alive.
You're worth that. We all are.
Back to the times of old - when stories were shared like a fire between friends.
And remember - when your own world is doing your head in - taking a journey outside of yourself into the world of another.
The gift is in the sharing.
The story is for enjoyment!
The dandelions are made for plucking my friends.
Loves ya,
Oliver.
