Tag Archives: Grace

The graceful (grateful) coming of Spring…

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Its April the 2nd. Spring is here! Whether it was for a day or a few hours, the sun was out today, and we had blue skies, cool breeze and a warm day. Just walking outside without a heavy jacket felt…liberating! A few pounds lighter and feeling heart-happy, I couldn’t help but muse on happiness. My thoughts ebbed and flowed, but there was nothing in particular that I was thinking or obsessing about. No worries that came to mind. I felt distinctly comfortable. My thoughts drifted along and I kept returning to the cool air touching my face and my feet touching the ground. I realized in the moment, that I was feeling happiness. A sense of wellness about my life.

Its amazing when we think about happiness – it doesn’t mean we don’t have issues or stuff happening – but somehow there is no pushing away, and there is a feeling of relaxed wellness that we can rest in. We are not holding on to something, and we are not pushing away anything. Somehow our energies are freed from efforting, and we simply are in the moment. happy. Sometimes conditions come together – like today: beautiful weather, time at hand, not too tired, and a comfortable body. Other times, happiness arises spontaneously like sun rays glistening through on a rainy day. What matters is that we notice. Somehow noticing solidifies that happiness, and increases it. I don’t know how.

Writer Gretchen Rubin talks about it in Happiness project, which has become one of my beloved go-to-books: that we aren’t happy until we think we are. In my own experience, I know this is true: when I notice my happiness, I can keep my stories of dramatizing difficult situations in check. I know that things are not always difficult – from my own experience, and hence they will pass. I have also found another secret that somehow eluded me for a large part of my life: that when things are difficult, it is nothing personal. It just is, and that’s life. When I don’t take it as the universe’s personal vendetta against me, I’m able to respond with equanimity and compassion.

Why realizing this secret in the moment is so hard, I don’t know. BUt I do understand why it is necessary to pay attention. When I invest in my happiness, like going for the walk today, I feel more relaxed and hence better able to pay attention without drifting off into space land of thinking or wishing. And when I’m balanced, I deal with life’s curveballs with more grace. And somehow this touches those around me – and that motivates me to take better care of myself. Its all inter-connected! That is the amazing part!

Blessings and peace to you and happy spring!

Autumn Grace…

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Another beautiful fall day. Everything looks so golden these days. The light, the trees, the leaves scattered everywhere. Especially in early afternoon light, as we drive down windy roads on our way home from work and preschool. I can’t get over how beautiful this time of the year is. An entire hill shining golden brown. Or rows and rows of trees that are either yellow, orange or red. Pumpkins and orange flowers lining up houses. The contrast of the blue sky against all of this golden orangeness.

And how temperamental, how fleeting. One minute sunshine, next minute clouds. One minute the gorgeousness of the sun setting low in the sky, the next minute darkness. Perhaps that is what makes the Fall so special.

It also feels like I’m seeing this with new eyes. I don’t remembering witnessing this same beauty the last couple of years. My life has so much revolved around Anjali – my point of focus and undivided attention. And now as she is growing and so am I, it feels good to relax my attention a bit – let it broaden and take in my surroundings, the people around me and take some moments to receive this grace.

It isn’t often in life when we feel graced. Graced by presence, by friendship – inner or outer, by abundance – of good food and good health. It isn’t always that we feel fortunate, that we do the things we love and there is so much right in our lives. There are so many struggles in life, so many unknowns, such little in our control – that it can be hard to remember the graceful moments – moments which flow, which touch us, in which we love and are loved. When we are in a place of grace – those small unbidden moments – driving down the road and watching birds take flight, or wind rustling the trees outside the window or locks of hair falling over our sleeping child’s serene face or stepping outside the car, rushing to catch up to work, and stopping for just a moment to feel the contrast of fresh cool air touching the face, the breeze flowing through the hair. These small moments of grace uplift our lives, they bring delight and pause. They touch our hearts so that the ordinariness of our lives is taken to the next level : to sacredness.

Everything becomes sacred – because it is the now. And it does not last. It takes on this preciousness, whose worth only time can unfold. And it is only by relaxed attention, by leaning back instead of forward, by receiving this moment and appreciating this pause – that we can live in this space of sacredness.

So if you make your way to this sacred moment. Stay. Just for another moment.

Peace to you, S.