The Adventure of Receiving

 It all seems so simple.  

We've been knocking around a while, experiencing life... becoming seasoned travelers through our adventures and struggles and have drawn some conclusions about how to navigate things.  We know what feels good to us and we like to act on those feelings.  That way, things seem predictable...they feel right.  And, furthermore, we are most comfortable when someone responds to us in the way that WE respond…the way that we prefer.  What we consider the RIGHTway.  The perfect moment for us is when someone acts exactly as WE do.  

But maybe this is not our real perfection.

While it is true that life would feel predictable if everyone acted exactly the way we did, that feels almost like the Stepford Wives story, doesn't it?   Mindless echoing of our thoughts and opinions.  And that scenario gets old really quick.  It's not enjoyable to be surrounded by parrots who keep "squawking" our own words back at us.

And we do not HAVE TO live in that Stepford world.  It's V E R Y boring and there are no invitations and opportunities to transcend the sticky moments of life.  The messy, really challenging, mountain climbing, truly soul satisfying stuff that teaches us new ways of looking at things. 


We get to ENJOY the ADVENTURE of not knowing what will cross our path.  Not knowing if our words, thoughts and actions will be affirmed, well received or questioned.  Not even imagining the life clues for us that could fall from someone's lips or the example their life story might provide for us.  Receiving all of this sensory stimulation
being delivered in varying states of emotion, sometimes dramatically different from the way we perceive what is happening or how we feel about it.

THIS is where the perfect adventure begins…witnessing, experiencing, RECEIVING the different ways that people think and feel and express themselves about life.


And this can be VERY interesting…puzzling, even intriguing and sometimes downright eccentric for these experiences reveal to us a great deal about the mystery of each person we encounter and the messages they may hold for us. 


To truly take all of this in it is important to have NO expectations.… to be completely OPEN to whatever wants to present itself in our world whether it takes us completely by surprise, excites or even irritates us or produces a feeling of camaraderie.   It is essential for us to not require others to walk through life exactly as we do. 


If we can feel at ease with this supposition, we can experience our own exciting ADVENTURE every single day. Actually, every single moment. Everything we encounter brings us new information, new perceptions and invariably teaches us something new we need to learn.  We are the RECEIVER in this fascinating experiment...a whirlwind of continuing new sensory impressions swirling around us, tapping us on the shoulder, inviting us to see something in a different and often creative way.

And THAT is The Adventure of Receiving, a gift of life intrinsic to this dimension.

                                    
                                                                    Marie Helena 



image from Paintings on Pinterest
Krishna, African Art and Abstract Paintings