When you’re wound up by work and family this holiday season, what would happen if you paused and asked: ‘Is this the path of love?
Today is one of those mornings where I read a poem and it just touched my heart. I have written and re-written reflections about it, but none of them feel right, so I’m just going to share with you why it touched me and offer the poem to you as food for thought about choosing love over judgment for the coming holiday season.
Yesterday was Thanksgiving in America. As many of you know, it’s my favourite holiday, largely because it gives us this opportunity to pause and reflect on what we’re grateful for. Gratitude shifts our attention from what we lack to what we already have, which improves our mental health, strengthens our relationships, and builds our resilience. Who wouldn’t want that?
Gratitude is also an opportunity to re-orient ourselves from a mindset of scarcity to a mindset of abundance. By focusing on all the blessings that are in our lives already, we start to notice more – and invite in even more. This simple reorientation can completely shift how we experience life – even if nothing changes in our external environment.
In a similar way, it can be interesting to explore the lens through which we evaluate what happens to us or choose our actions. We can ask our selves “Is this right? Is it just? Is it fair?” From that perspective, we may live from a place of judgment, constantly measuring both our and others’ actions against some standard of right vs. wrong. Yes, it is helpful – but it is also divisive, including internally (think of all those times when you’ve beaten yourself up for doing the “wrong” thing).
I love Rosemerry Wahtola Trommer’s poem because it reminded me that we can chose a different orientation: one of love. What if, when deciding how to act, we asked ourselves: “Is this the path of love?” Asking that question interrupts my default actions as I pause to consider what love would even look like in that instance. Love towards another person? Love towards myself? Love for this world we live in?
As we head into the holiday season, if you’re feeling yourself get tense and wound up by work and/or family, perhaps try out Rosemerry’s question and see what effect it has on you. We could all use a little more love these days.
