Читать книгу Living Long, Living Passionately - Karen Casey - Страница 23

Perhaps you haven't thought much about the role perspective has played in your life prior to reading these essays. But it's been a big one, I assure you, and over the years you have honed either a positive perspective or a negative one to near perfection. Whichever one we most often grab in the heat of the moment painstakingly paints the perspective we have about life. The good news is that we can more consciously choose to paint, thus project, a positive perspective, assuring that the “picture” that is us will be far different from what it was. Nothing stands in our way but our failure to make a different choice. In your life, who influences your perspective?

Let's pause a moment and think about the many people who show up on our path regularly. They are not showing up willy-nilly. Some are frequent visitors; quite possibly we envy a few of them because of their demeanor. Maybe they are easygoing, most commonly happy and willing to be helpful to others, all traits we admire. Many are family members, some of whom we look forward to seeing. Some not so much. The nosy neighbor drops in too. Don't ever discount her or dismiss him as unimportant to the development of your perspective, even though you may dread seeing them approach your door. You might be looking at one of your most important teachers whose every action or word is nurturing your willingness to be more accepting, a decision that shifts your perspective from negative to positive. This may be the very reason they are in your life.

On the other hand, maybe you are serving as their teacher, the one who can help them shift their negative perspective into one that is more genial. Demonstrating a new way of seeing may change everything that follows from this day forward in his or her life. No encounter is superfluous. That fact is worth rejoicing over. From the moment I embraced that idea, I was free of the dread I felt about every person who troubled me in the past, particularly those who had manhandled my perspective.

Because it's a worthy pursuit to make a list of our many teachers to date, list the primary ones in your journal, and acknowledge the specific gift that resulted from their presence on your path. And remember, not all gifts looked good when first received.

For example: Echo was one of my teachers. She was the first to introduce me to the concept of sacred contracts, an idea that was fortified by reading books by Caroline Myss. Initially I was frightened by the idea, but over time, this idea has completely freed me from the prison of guilt I felt over some of my past behavior. I know now that everything I did and everyone I met were agreed upon before I woke up in this world.

Now it's your turn to consider your teachers. The importance of this can't be overemphasized. Pick your primary teachers, regardless of how you evaluated them initially. What demonstrates they were teachers?

Now let's turn the tables and consider all those for whom you served as teacher. Don't underestimate your value to them. Your paths intersected quite by design. You had talent or knowledge or compassion that was very much needed by them at a particular time. They would not have appeared otherwise. If you are failing to think of anyone right away, take a timeout to meditate on your life and the many people you met.

Folks have not quit seeking you out, even though youth has passed you by. Who are they and what have you shared lately? The student/teacher exchange lasts a lifetime. A full lifetime.

Without a doubt, your life has been well lived. Some actions might have been improved upon. Some “students” handled with greater mastery and compassion. And your lessons were offered more than adequately. Often we still have one lingering thought about our past that haunts us. Feel free to share it here, for no eyes but your own. The very sharing of it is the best way to bid it goodbye.