The Zen moment

This winter was extraordinary. I don’t remember so much snow here in years… at all, as a matter of fact.

There were times when it was falling down constantly for hours and all you could do was grab a shovel and clean up your way from the house or access path to your garage. You ended up putting away everything that was falling down from above, the heavier it became the less you had time to do anything else but clean up.

And life didn’t keep behind and just as the snow, it brought up many challenges – almost every day.

As with the snow, I took a metaphoric shovel and tried to make my way literally through every single challenge.

At the end of January, I realized that the more it was “snowing” the more I actually needed to be in the present moment and just let things go the way they were, do my best and not spend any of my energy struggling with it or resisting it. At times I failed. I confess. But many times, I did not. And it made me feel very proud of myself.

Last Saturday morning, as I was taking out food from the fridge, I hit by mistake the whipping cream and it fell on the floor with a huge bang, leaving a fatty stain on the floor, doors of my fridge, my pyjamas and my slippers. I stepped outside of the cream spot, threw my slippers into the bin, changed my pyjamas and without any words or resentment, I wiped the floor clean with the paper towels. Once done, I stood there and began to laugh. A situation like this would normally end up with me becoming an angry bird at myself for being clumsy, not sparing any special words. Lord, forgive me. But the winter season and last months changed me. I realized that whipping cream on the floor is not that big of a deal to take up my precious energy and fill me with anger.

It was a very welcome and unexpected situation and I think it is a good sign.

An illness (or any other obstacle in fact) has the power to change one’s perspectives in life. When normal situations become challenging, when things don’t go the way we had planned (and they sometimes don’t), when doing sports messes you up more than laying on the sofa and you find yourself choosing between wanting to do sports and all the lows and highs it almost always brings, one can reevaluate the views and perspectives. When you chose for the better good for your health, despite the obstacles, you grow… you change…

And as in the laws of physics, the more energy you put into struggling against the “unplanned” and “unwanted” life’s mischiefs and not accepting things as they are, the more you are hit back with the same force of resistance, albeit at a different spot. The energy must be preserved.

It’s time to take the shovel and just clean up the path with the mind in the present moment and do it with humbleness and humility. This seems to be the best recipe.