Certain spaces and places fill your soul. My writing nook fills my soul. It is in the corner of my living room, which has views to a little pond on our porch, which I affectionately call my “tranquility pond”. I often crack the door by the pond, and I listen to its calming little trickle of water, as I write. My writing nook also has a view of our backyard, which backs up to a lovely little, hidden lake. It is not uncommon for herons, cardinals, wild turkeys, ducks, deer, tortoises and even the occasional alligator to come into view from my large glass slider window, begging for my attention, like a constantly evolving, moving wild zoo. In the morning, the sun rises up, brightly over the tall trees of the forest behind the lake, and in the evening, the sunlight illuminates the whole scene so hazily and beautifully, bringing everything into a crisper, outlined view, like seeing out of a nice, expensive pair of sunglasses. The setting sun gives the lake and the trees and everything else in the scene, this holy sheen and illumination. My family has affectionately and reverently named this particular time of the day, “the golden hour.”
I found another new personal “soul space” earlier this week. I rode along with my husband, who was picking up a piece of hardware we needed from a specialty store. Right next to that store, was a lovely little antique shop, which I decided to duck into, while my husband ran his errand. I instantly felt at home in this little gem of a curio shop. Sometimes when I walk into antiques stores, I feel like I have entered a storage container for a hoarder. There is dust everywhere, and there is no seeming rhyme or reason for what is being displayed. This was not one of those haphazard antiques stores. This particular store has a beautiful, tranquil energy, from the minute you walk into it. Everything offered for sale has obviously been curated with great care. It feels as if everything displayed in this store, has a fabulous story to go with it – a story longing to be heard. When I was in the store, I wanted to disappear into time and into space a little bit there, but it was my husband’s lunch break and we had to get back home. Inevitably, I will be drawn back to visit the little shop, soon. Soul spaces always draw you back to them, with a subtle, but strong force, almost seemingly against your will, like having an invisible hand against your back, guiding you gently, but firmly back to your heart zones.
Now, if you can, I want you to imagine one of your soul spaces, like the couple of soul spaces that I have described above. Picture yourself in your own soul space and conjure up every detail about that particular soul space which makes you like it so well, and what draws you to be there. This soothing soul space makes you feel so comfortable and perfectly connected to Life, in almost a timeless sense. Sense those feelings of comfort, security, and love. Now, I want you to imagine a few pesky flies swarming around your soul space. (If you are having trouble picturing this, then imagine flies buzzing around me as I write in my treasured little nook, or as I peruse my favored little shop.) When the flies come in, naturally you are annoyed. You want to get rid of the flies. You implement tools like swatters and bug spray, and you open doors and windows, in hopes for the flies to leave. While, the flies are swarming around you, you are missing out on all of the amazing beauty and tranquil energy surrounding you in your soul space, because all of your attention is going towards getting rid of the flies. All of your attention is on a few tiny little flies, instead of on all of the beauty, and attractiveness, and comfort, and uniqueness, of your serene, special soul space.
I’ve been doing a lot of deep thinking, lately. (story of my life) I’ve been thinking about how important it is to make peace with our aggravations, our grievances, and even the deepest forms of our grief. By the time we are middle aged, most of us have experienced many aggravations. Further, by this time in our lives, very few of us have escaped from experiencing major grief, perhaps because of the passing on of a loved one, or the ending of a marriage or another important relationship, or the loss of a job and the stability that comes with that job, or having to deal with a major, chronic health issue. Unfortunately, aggravations and sadnesses and even deep grief, come with the territory of living a life, for many years.
If we compare our daily lives to our physical soul spaces, we can see how many wonderful people and things and interests and unique experiences surround us, every single day. But most of our soul spaces (our unique individual lives), also have a few flies (aggravations and grievances and things that make us angry and sad) buzzing around us, vying for our attention. We can always do healthy things to try to get rid of our “flies”, like singing, and praying ,and meditating, and talking to loved ones, and going to therapy, and taking good care of our physical bodies with good nutrition, exercise and sleep. We can also do unhealthy things to try to distract ourselves from our “flies” using mind numbing, instant gratification types of activities and addictive behaviors, such as overeating, and overdrinking or doing drugs, or mindlessly shopping or exploring the internet, or gambling, or creating a lot of meaningless, distracting dramas in our lives. Still, no matter how we try to “handle” the flies in our soul space, some flies are never going to completely go away. Again, reality is that some flies are never going to completely go away. They are too deeply entrenched. And also, even as some flies leave, some other new flies will sneak into our soul spaces, often when we least expect them. The choice remains for us to focus on the space (our lives in totality) versus the flies (our grievances). We can choose to focus on how good our space feels to us, everything that it gives to us, and all of the beauty contained within it. And we can come to a peace, and an acceptance, that a few flies do not nearly make the overall impact of the lovely space.
The biggest mistake which a lot of us make, is that we don’t allow ourselves to fully enjoy our soul spaces, until we can get rid of all of the flies. We have a hard time understanding that all of the goodness and light and pleasure that comes with our soul space, can coexist with the flies, quite comfortably. Some days the flies are going to seem huge. These big old horseflies are going to constantly land on us and bite us and not leave us alone. No matter how hard we try to ignore the flies, they are going to noisily insist on our attention. But if we make peace with that fact, and we stop resisting them, or we stop futilely wishing that our soul space was absolutely perfect, with no flies to ever deal with, the flies have a way of shrinking into the background, and staying in their own tiny corners, mostly out of our view. The flies can live in our soul space. The flies can act as a reminder to shift our attention away from them. The contrast of the annoying flies can help us to bring into focus, and then melt into the extraordinary beauty and the astonishing wonder that is surrounding us, every single day of our lives, even if it is in just one small corner of the earth which we claim as our own special “soul space.”
Are you passing on love, or are you passing on pain? Heal your pain and pass on love.