For me, noticing the good things – however tiny – has been a sort of hook into the world when I had been feeling like I was drifting.
Believe it or not, the very good Bahn Mi shop or the excellent garlic crusher from the Salvation Army or the sought after book that popped up at the library all felt like reassurance when things were otherwise less than reassuring.
It wasn’t just things either. Well. Not those sort of buy-able things. Very often it was good things I was on the outside of, looking in.
A flock of herons (are they herons? Or egrets?) spotted flying past my bedroom window in the very early dawn light.
Dew drops on the blades of grass pushing their way through the muddy back yard.
Spring blossom that was gone one day, here the next.
These were all signs that I was surrounded by an inherent goodness and that at the heart of it, my world pulsed with a sort of wholesome and beautiful core.
Sometimes it feels like all that stuff is going on around you, swirling externally. And that can be isolating, but it’s actually – if you can manage to flip it – bolstering.
For me these good things were a reminder that, whatever tricky bits life was serving up, that I was a nice but tiny human blip in the universe, surrounded by so much brilliant big stuff. That the good was way bigger than I was and I should not ever think otherwise.
That good things were trustily all over the place, if I took the time to notice them.
It also turned out that if only I could somehow see fit to let their good thing glow wash over me, now and again, then I could perhaps feel a little stronger.
Kind of like when the winter sunshine is finally strong enough to soak into your skin a little, and the warmth somehow makes you take a big breath without meaning to.
Smooches to you. Especially if you are going through something hard at the moment.
xx pip
2 Comments
Pip, thank you for sharing the good things with us in your posts. In fact, your posts are one of the good things! I often save them up in my inbox and re-read them when I need bolstering.
Thank you, thank you, thank you!
I love your posts Pip, and wish I knew you in real life! Thank you x