Unexpected Blessings
Looking back on 2021, I (like others, I would guess) notice first the many challenges I have experienced and the resulting wounds, disappointments and/or growth.
WHAT IF INSTEAD WE FIRST IDENTIFIED THE UNEXPECTED BLESSINGS?
A great book by Joan Borysenko called Fire In The Soul looks at trauma experiences and contrasts those who thrive afterward and those who never seem to recover. Interestingly, those who thrive look at their traumatic experiences and find the lesson, blessing and resulting personal growth. Those who struggle to recover focus on the wound, or victimization that the experience brought them.
To better engage our ability to thrive in the face of great challenge, we first need to see/notice the unexpected blessing.
As I get older I like winter less and less. I don’t like being cold, confined indoors, or the increased struggle of getting around. I’ve noticed this attitude colors how I prepare for winter, approach my day, and how I plan my winter social activities. I’ve found that when I instead focus on the beauty of the moment, the gift of change in the seasons and surroundings, the increased downtime of ‘sitting out’ big weather and the added quiet of a snowy or rainy day, I am seeing the unexpected blessing.
The next step then is to accept the blessing in the experience.
What happens, happens. It is how we describe or define it to ourselves that determines our experience of what happened. Can you change how to define events?
Winter is still coming, and it will be cold and snowy over the next four months. However, I can see the mountains and open fields from my home. This alone is a great blessing in my life. I get to see the snow increase on the highest peaks and the topography of the land get highlighted when covered by snow, which is melting underneath the surface. I am blessed to work from home and not have to go out in bad weather. I have dogs that love to play in the snow and warm outer wear that keeps me comfortable. These are just some of the many blessings that winter brings!
Last, it is helpful to use the unexpected blessing experience to gain a different, more expanded perspective.
(This is the personal growth part!) Appreciating the blessing in the experience allows me to change how I think about, talk about, and experience an event. Instead of ‘hating’ winter, I can choose to see it as an unexpected blessing that brings a different beauty, solitude, stillness, lighting, and kind of play to my day. It is the tactile experience of fuzzy slippers, cold snow, heavy blankets, hot drinks, and candle lit evenings. It is the season of looking within, slowing down and evaluating what to bring back out into the world (spring). It is deciding how you have changed, as result of the inner personal work of winter.
Looking back on 2021, the second year of Covid, I see many challenges that we collectively still grapple with. I ask myself, “can I see this as an unexpected blessing?” Next year we begin to enter the energy of the Pluto Return for the US. This is where Pluto returns to the location in its orbit where it was when the Declaration of Independence was signed – or when we were born as a country. There will be many things brought to light, debated, rebelled, and fought for over the next four plus years as we reevaluate what this country means to us.
Can you pause and ask yourself to see the Unexpected Blessings in our collective challenge?
With blessings of insight and love for all,
Janna