Fresh perspectives

Choices… and Perspective

/ Twist the Leaf / 1 Comment

I may have stumbled upon one of the new perspectives that my Self Care Saturday spread from earlier this week was referring to while I was in the shower last evening.

Fish

Sometimes in my mind I gripe about the shit I don’t like… as I’m sure most people do.  You know… not the people per se, but like the soft water in this house that has a weird taste and makes it fucking impossible to rinse all the conditioner out of my hair.

And then my mind kind of wandered on to thinking about my shower at home, which has much harder water and you come out of it feeling much cleaner.  And in the middle of this thought, I had a memory of when my aunt and cousin came to visit MY home for a while and how she had complained about my water being too hard.

And that got me to thinking…

Would I rather have her (or them) visiting my home?

Or would I rather be a guest in her home?

Her home.  Hands down, 100% completely her home.  That’s the answer.  I don’t like them in my home.  I don’t like any of them in my home. I don’t like them touching my stuff, putting ass prints on my furniture in odd places, or mingling their scents into the familiar scent of my home. I don’t like their energy mucking up my space, their dirty dishes, or their constant disturbances, or the need to feed them or entertain them.  I hate it.  All of it. I really do.

If coming here now and again keeps them from coming to my house?  It’s worth the discomfort.   Absolute, completely worth every little shred of the discomfort of being here.

And that is an entirely new perspective on visiting family that I hadn’t thought of before. So there you go… there really is gold at the end of the rainbow, you just have to dig in the mud to find it.

My Kisses are Balloons – A Little Whimsy

/ Twist the Leaf / 2 Comments

kissWhen I was very little and I was trying very, very hard to learn how to draw hearts, it was frustrating to me that I couldn’t make a nicely shaped heart and have a perfect tip at the bottom. The lines always crossed.

My mother assured me not to worry about this. She said that a heart that is finished with the crossed lines at the bottom is sealed with a kiss.

Thinking back on this now, that was really sweet of her. And, for the longest time, that’s how I saw it.  But somewhere along the line, as I’ve gotten older, I’ve come to see it in a different way.

I don’t know how, or when, or why… but somewhere along the way those crossed lines at the bottom of a hand drawn heart transformed for me. It now no longer looks like an X, but instead they’ve started to look like the beginning of something new…

balloon

(Drawings done by Twist the Leaf… obviously.)

 

Be the Lamb, Not the Lion

/ Twist the Leaf / 1 Comment

Today’s meditation was fifteen minutes and eight seconds, And focused on something called the Beginners Mind.

This is the concept of looking at things through fresh eyes instead of through with preconceived notions. It’s about experiencing things as if they are new, and letting that sense of wonder at something new into your heart and mind.

I think this is something that I’ve started to forget to do. Not that I’ve forgotten how, but more that I’ve just forgotten to practice this in my life.

There was a time when I saw a lot of the world this way… but I feel that over time I’ve closed off and forgotten to experience things in this perspective. I think it’s possible that having that shift in perspective has made me a less positive person.

Perhaps it’s time to start consciously practicing Beginners Mind more regularly in an effort to make it a habit once more.

Today’s draw is the page of pentacles. The suit of Pentacles represents money, resources, and the physical plane. The Page represents an omega type of energy, personality, or person.

The page in the suit can also represent one’s focus and dedication towards something of the physical plane. For me, that is stability. Financial stability is one of my lifelong goals, no matter what tax bracket I’m in or how much money I have (or don’t have) in my pocket at any given time.

This card ties into my current worries about monetary issues and the extra spending that I did while I was in that pit of depression. It’s a reminder to be cautious when spending money for a while so that I can catch up.

The card is telling me to be the lamb. Do not be the lion, full of roar and fight and push and shove. Instead, focus on that goal of stability that I’ve built over the years of my life and accept it takes time and dedication. One small hiccup doesn’t change that in the long run.

At the same time, this card also reminds me not to be too hard on myself about those small spending that I did during that time. Stability is a long term goal. It takes patience and a long reach… not a short race.