Over the holidays, as I watched the snow falling and felt the quiet of another Covid Christmas just a bit too deeply, this thought came to me: notice what is being offered.
So often we want people and situations to be something other than what they are. We might spend hours or years explaining to people how we want to be loved. We might complain that we don’t have the right help, the right job, the right home, or friends, or partner. We might kick and scream, or cry quietly, or just walk through our lives feeling unsatisfied or frustrated.
Some of us fight externally, and some of us carry the weight of our discontent like a little ball of sadness inside our chests. We get so focused on discomfort or on trying to change things that we don’t take a minute to really observe and assess whether what is being offered to us is truly a match for our energy and lives, just as they are right now, in this moment. I've found it very freeing to shift from fighting what isn’t working to noticing what is truly being offered.
Just observe. Tell yourself the truth about what's in front of you and how it feels in your life. See it for what it is. Don’t try to change it, and don’t be hard on yourself for choosing it. Don’t fight gravity by pushing the boulder up the mountain another day. Just sit in silence and notice; and then move gently in the direction of the offerings that warm your heart, open doors, or provide respite to your mind, body and spirit. Don’t move toward the offerings that take too much from you, limit your dreams, or leave you feeling less than your truest, most loving self. Don’t make any noise about it either way. Just notice, and then move closer to the best things with an open mind and heart. What is not for you will fall away, and you'll be left with a life that aligns with your values.
I made this shift over the holidays. I was perhaps noisier about it than my ideal self would have liked me to be. But this change in perspective was needed. We can never force people or situations to offer us what they cannot. We can only take an open-eyed approach to really getting still and seeing, hearing and feeling what's in front of us.
As we observe without the intention to force change, facing the truth about what's being offered might hurt. But it can also free us to focus on the good. If what's being offered is not what we need or want, we can choose to gently move toward what feels better for us; and in doing so, we shift our energy to a more receptive and peaceful place. This alignment creates a beautiful and calming congruency between our best intentions and our external world.
Everything in life is an offering, and it is your choice to either accept or decline. Noticing what nurtures your heart and life, and gravitating toward those things, is a simple and beautiful way to choose a new and brighter path.