This quote from Deepak Chopra might sound familiar: ‘Treat every moment as a gift; that is why it is called the present.’ 💝
But seriously, is it easy to treat each present moment equally as a gift? 🎁
A mother’s nurturing energy to her newborn; 🤱
A stranger’s random, generous help that brings you warmth; 🌹
Your furry friend’s welcoming cuddles make you want to pour even more love; 🐶🐧🐱
A baby’s sweet, innocent laughter melts your heart 🐣
A friend’s genuine support and encouragement to your growth truly moves you to the core. 💕🙏
The common ground shared here ☝️ is given without the expectation of return. There’s no transaction whatsoever. It’s energetically pure.
Deep down, we seek to connect with what unconditional love makes us feel — and we hope each moment is apparently easy to love and embrace; a moment that is a no-brainer to equate with ‘blessings’ and ‘gratitude.’
However, things don’t always go according to our human wishes. At times (if not often), you find yourself in moments that contradict the ideal, perfect, easy-to-love moment:
🦇 The moment you feel misunderstood or judged by others;
🦇 The moment you don’t feel good about yourself;
🦇 The moment you realize things weren’t what they seemed to be initially;
🦇 The moment you’re asked to face challenges alone, especially battling with inner demons;
🦇 The moment you have to learn to forgive your mistakes or those of others;
🦇 The moment you’re called to see the illusional ideas or expectations you’ve imposed on others;
🦇 The moment you have to tell yourself to slow down to feel how you feel;
🦇 The moment you walk on the forked road where you need to make tough choices that may trigger people you care;
🦇 The moment you have to learn big lessons through falling out of relationships;
🦇 The moment you’re tempted to dwell on old addictive habitual patterns;
🦇 The moment you struggle with clarity, losing faith in whatever that’s headed your way;
🦇 The moment your ego is being bruised, you feel hurt during the healing process;
🦇 The moment you feel things are simply out of control…
(The list can go on and on.)
More than frequently, we tend to glorify moments that bring us great emotional joy, fulfillment, warmth, and harmony, but not recognize there’s sacredness in the shadowy moments as well.
Those moments of depression, rage, jealousy, deep sadness, powerlessness, or shame.
We might feel tempted to make these moments wrong as if they are some kind of disease that causes us to drift apart from what we think we deserve to receive (joy, warmth, love, respect, acknowledgment, etc.).
Imagine this, if Every Moment is a “Forever human friend” of yours, personified. This friend can look bright and sunny one day.
But say, she may happen to be moody every once in a while; will you resent her or blame her for disappointing you for not showing up the way you want her to?
Or, is this friend obliged to bring nothing but happiness & joy into your life? There’s a sense of entitlement, myself included! 😶
How do we create or co-create a loyal conscious friendship with each moment? 🤔
So when we ignore, banish, or push those darker moments away, not allowing them the space to “express their mood,” we start to disconnect with this friend. 🎁
Can we really treat each moment fairly without conditions? 🧐
Probably difficult to do so because it’s just human nature to chase after pleasure and avoid pain.
There’ll be moments you feel super blessed, things are just easy flowing for you, and there’ll also be times you’re being presented with unexpected hardships or setbacks, who knows! 🌊
Instead of letting different flavors of each moment affect your relationship with life, perhaps invite yourself to practice saying as frequently as possible while noticing your breaths:
“In this moment, regardless of how much my human self enjoys it or not, it is supposed to happen this way for my highest good. I am receiving the gift of experience right now. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.” 🙏
Feel the acceptance in your body, in your mind and in your spirit. All is well in this very moment and feeling grateful. This helps neutralize our strong feelings towards a particular moment that’s either preferable or undesirable. 🪷
The more we are willing to practice finding the middle point to ride with the ebbs & flows, the more compassionate and accepting we become towards ourselves as we no longer get trapped easily by being cynical towards different moments in life. 🪷🙏❤️🌏🌳
xoxo,
Jen
