It started when I noticed the smell of incense. Then I began to notice the waitress placing flower baskets around the restaurant. A few minutes later I noticed the man guiding me and my daughter for the morning also create flower baskets with incense that he laid along the path to the ocean.
I wondered what they were . . .
I learned that they were baskets of blessings. They are made as an offering to ask the Gods to protect the people and nurture the land.
I smelled the lingering scent of incense everywhere I went the two weeks on the magical Island of Bali. The incense transported me to a place of peace and quiet.
I woke up early each morning when the sun was barely coming up, mostly because of the jet lag, and would write and think. Over the days I could feel the mix of protection melt away and the more vulnerable layers rise to the surface.
I wrote about my father who died 10 years ago; my best friend who died this past year to suicide; the heartache I carry with me about my divorce. I reflected about what’s important in life; what I want my legacy to be and what I wish for myself in the years to come. I thought about about the couple of people who I am so deeply grateful for in my life; the appreciation of nature surrounding me and the great fortune and blessing of learning to scuba dive in my 40s and now going underwater with my daughter in the Indian Ocean.
It felt as if nature, quiet, time, blessings and kindness were a medicine that I didn’t know that I needed until I had started drinking it in.
And then I landed back home and noticed the jarring transition to life . . . Short fuses, the cold shoulder, snarky comments, impatience, edginess and low level of irritations.
Am I also that way? Am I attracting this kind of treatment? Am I too sensitive; too outspoken?What’s going on here?
So I first started with myself and took a look at all that I have going on in my personal life and when I took an inventory and laid it all out there it’s a lot when you add it all up. And on those days when it feels like I am holding all the hard things on my plate at once; it can feel as if I am holding it all together hoping that I won’t break.
Then I started thinking about the “other.” The one who is short tempered and cold towards me or the one I feel the impatience and irritation when I ask a question.
I started wondering, “what’s going on with them?”
If something is going on with me and something is going on with them then we are bouncing off each other’s struggle.
Or if something is happening with me and nothing with them the other person can get caught as the recipient of my stress.
The same is true for me. I may very well be joyful and at peace, but I’ve just walked into another person’s struggle or distress.
I think a lot of us are tapped out; vacillating between moments of appreciation, joy and contentment, but also holding our personal, societal and cultural struggles and challenges that don’t allow for a lot of flexibility or space in our mind, body and heart.
It’s the air we are all breathing. The water we are all swimming in.
So how do we get out off this dilemma?
I think it starts with us; take time to be in nature; look up at the sky; lay on the grass; breathe space into the tight places in our body; put your hand on your heart; ask someone about their life and how they feel; tell someone about your life and how you feel and stay curious about the person who might be crabby, cold, defensive or angry and remember that it’s most likely not about you.
