Feelings like disappointment, embarrassment, irritation, resentment, anger, jealousy, and fear, instead of being bad news, are actually very clear moments that teach us where it is that we're holding back. They teach us to perk up and lean in when we feel we'd rather collapse and back away. They're like messengers that show us, with terrifying clarity, exactly where we're stuck. This very moment is the perfect teacher, and, lucky for us, it's with us wherever we are ... The greatest obstacle to connecting with our joy is resentment.
... prayer is not asking for what you think you want but asking to be changed in ways you can't imagine. To be made more grateful, more able to see the good in what you have been given instead of always grieving for what might have been.
What fascinates me so much is that every time we decide to be grateful, it will be easier to see new things to be grateful for. Gratitude begets gratitude, just as love begets love.
I have learned to quit speeding through life, always trying to do too many things too quickly, without taking the time to enjoy each day's doings. I think I always thought of real living as being high. I don't mean on drugs – I mean real living was falling in love, or when I got my first job, or when I was able to help somebody . . . In between the highs I was impatient — you know how it is — life seemed so Daily. Now I love the dailiness. I enjoy washing dishes, I enjoy cooking, I see my father's roses out the kitchen window. I like picking beans. I notice everything – birdsongs, the clouds, the sound of wind, the glory of sunshine after two weeks of rain. These are the things I took for granted before [cancer].
~ Olive Ann Burns quoted in MITTEN STRINGS FOR GOD by Katrina Kenison
Desire is a tricky thing, the boiling of the body's wants...
I've been the one who has craved and craved until I could not see
beyond my own greed. There's a whole nation of us.
To forgive myself, I point to the earth as witness.
... tell me,
what it is to be quiet, and yet still breathing...
...to honor this: the length of days. To speak to the core
that creates and swallows, to speak not always to what's
shouting, but to what's underneath asking for nothing...
~ Ada Limon from "Notes on the Below" in THE CARRYING