​I’m learning something important right now, and I’d love to share it with you…

There’s plenty of pain, devastation, and misery to see around us. And I’m not recommending sticking our heads in the sand. But if you allow the negative to become your focus, your consuming thought, well… it will happily CONSUME you!

So what I’m currently learning, is to focus in on moments of beauty or pleasure, eagerly looking for the good, even when I am right in the middle of hard things. I am increasingly leaning in to each moment, looking for the joy. I’m soaking in the stillness, the beauty, or the pleasure a moment has to offer. I am allowing myself to soften and take it in.

Here’s what I mean. At a recent meal out, I was having a hard time. The tenor of the table conversation was tense and unpleasant. Just trying to participate in the discussion felt like rowing upstream against a waterfall of negativity and I was drowning.

But then I decided to simply put down my paddle. I decided to let the conversation go to whatever miserable place it wanted to go. Only Sarah was not going to go there with it. For a few precious moments, I permitted the words float away from me, just a little. I was still lightly tethered, enough that I could grab ahold and reconnect at any moment.

But yes, I let it all float out in front of me. I withdrew inwardly. I closed my eyes and allowed the sun streaming in the window by our table to warm my face and soften my muscles. I felt a small smile form as I lingered in the softness of the moment. For just a few heartbeats, I drank it in and found peace and pleasure.

Because I, alone, get to choose the gaze of my heart — both at that table, and right now.

Today as I am thinking back on the event, I do remember the prickliness of it, the discomfort, the vacuum of joylessness ever pulling and tugging at me to draw me into its vortex of misery. Even now as I type, I could go there and get lost.

But again, I make a choice. I turn my face, my attention, my heart in another direction. Because my focus and attention are all mine.

So now, weeks later, because I anchored-in that moment, because I gave it the time and attention necessary to make it real, it’s now a treasure in my treasure chest. It belongs to me and I can draw upon it at any time. Even if the ugliness of the world is in full swirl, I own my attention and I, alone, get to choose where I allow it to dwell.

Just thought I’d share with you from my heart today. I hope you find it helpful!