The sun is looking at me

'Living life in the here and now'. I admit this statement gave me the creeps for quite some time. 'If it were that easy, there would not be any problems anymore' I would often think. And then I would put the idea aside being 'too simple'. However, since I have made strategy four of the Virtues Project, ‘Honor the Spirit’, the central point of my life, I have started to think substantially differently about this.

At the beginning of last year I resolved to make more time for this strategy. A deliberate choice, initially meant to have more attention and care for myself. But apart from that the thought behind it was that if you take good care of yourself, it will benefit other people as well. I have been taking care of our little girl on a full-time basis for almost four years now. A period in which I have intensely enjoyed spending time with her, but in which I have also felt desperate every now and again, to the point of feeling discontented. Not least because I felt I was disregarding myself or, put more accurately, was losing touch with myself. By being so close with Amber the past years, there have been very few moments for myself.

Accumulation

Little by little I was itching to take up work outside the home. I became general editor of a knitting,  crochet and embroidery magazine and set up my own business 'Hartewensen'. In the meantime my mother got seriously ill and I also wanted to have time to be there for her and my father. All in all there was so much on my plate now that I felt completely knackered at the end of each day. You could almost say that it was sheer necessity to declare strategy four my resolution for this new year. But there is more. As a young child, it was often silent in my head. A silence that confused me at the time, made me insecure, but that has gradually made me realize that it is something beautiful that I want to come into contact with again. In fact, this silence in my head was nothing more than being in the here and now. More than anybody else children know how to live life in the here and now. As we get older, we tend to lose this gift only too often. 

Blinking through the clouds

In the past month I have experienced that taking time for rest, reflection and contemplation brings me a lot of satisfaction. Instead of reacting on the spot, I am mostly engaged in registering what I experience and feel. And if I notice that I can't let go of something in my head, I look for other ways to release these thoughts: by means of drawing, writing, just sitting down quietly or going outside. The answers and solutions most often present themselves or it comes home to me that I simply cannot or do not want to influence something. I once sat down with Amber in the garden, for instance, because there was a 'storm in my head'. While we were sitting there and a few sunbeams were warming us, Amber said 'the sun is looking at me'. For her this was the literal translation of what she was experiencing at that moment. I let the words sink in and noticed that they got a completely different meaning for me. There was something comforting about them, as if there is somebody, somewhere, watching over me, and says, blinking through the clouds: 'it is ok, have faith in yourself and the path you take'. I looked around me and noticed the beauty of nature, so nearby. A single rose that didn't cease to bloom, even though winter had arrived; the hips on the rose bushes; clouds as cotton pads that slowly drifted past... Little by little it became quieter in my head and heart. 'Once we calm down in the now, we start seeing the beauty and wonders of this moment', I read this morning in the book 'Attention is like sunshine' by Thich Nhat Hanh.

Solidarity

The interpretation of strategy four is different for everybody. My husband, for instance, has found a way to create a meditative moment while driving home from work. The radio is off, he consciously makes contact with the steering wheel and the chair and keeps on driving slowly on the right lane. A whole new experience for him, but one that brings him a lot of satisfaction. Once home, he is detached from his work and pays attention to us as a family. You can also focus on this strategy as a family, class, team or organization by doing collective activities that inspire, generate new energy, lead to more depth of understanding and create solidarity.

'Living life in the here and now.' Seven separate, simple words that carry a beautiful treasure collectively: commitment with yourself, others and the world around you.

Author: Heleen Hoppesteyn-Uithoven, www.hartewensen.com
Illustrator: Pascale Guillou, https://www.facebook.com/PascaleGuillouIllustrationGraphicDesign
Translator: Hester Wisselink, https://www.facebook.com/hester.wisselink?fref=ts

The Virtues Project: www.virtuesproject.com

Het Deugdenproject (Dutch): www.deugdenproject.nl