Couple things on my mind today...
1) "The source of a true smile is an awakened mind.
Smiling helps you approach the day with gentleness and understanding".
~Thich Nhat Hanh ~
( read this in a book called " Peace in Every step")
You often hear stories about people with cancer, or serious injuries, illness, whatever it be..that somehow have the best perspectives and are happy, cheerful, people.
It always blows my mind, but makes me so happy and hopeful when I hear those stories...I mean, talk about people who have AWAKENED MINDS. They have the right perspective....they have a smile on their face, that shows that their EYES ARE OPEn to all of the beautiful, wonderful things about life. They can see through/ see over /see past the negative things that are happening to them..and be happy happy happy.
That just seems so so cool to me. And it has never seemed so clear to me how that works and how that can happen. How people can not let such life altering things make them bitter.
I love that smile quote up there ^^^^ I was thinking about that the other day...
While I was cleaning up the kitchen and carrying on some in depth conversation with one of my family members, my little brother Troy kept nagging me to pay attention to something that he wanted to show me. I kept talking, and ignoring his constant interrupting, " Paige...paige...paige...uh, paige..."...Finally I blew up a little bit " TROY, please stop interrupting me and saying my name while I am talking!!" ( my tone sounded pretty upset) but when I watched as he kinda jumped at my outbreak and then stuttered something like " oh, uh uh, I'm sorry, uh,sorry Paige..I just kinda wanted to show you something.."
My heart kinda melted to see him stutter some sort of explanation...and it was so cute to me that he was so apologetic and so sorry to have bothered me. All of a sudden a big smile came across my face and I remembered reading that quote, and now I could more fully understand the meaning.
Whatever I was talking about may have been important, but my sweet little brother wanted to show me some cool little trick he had just learned and felt really excited about. Getting angry or mad for even a second was proof that my eyes weren't open to see how sweet this opportunity was... to allow my brother to show me something he was excited about, and then to congratulate him and tell him how awesome he was that he could do something like that....that was an opportunity that would have been sad to pass up! It's little things like that, that are important in relationships. Little Troy needs love and encouragement at this age. He needs approval and positive reinforcement when he does good things.
I felt like I instantly smiled when my mind was awakened to reality and to what was most important right then.
Next time you have a true genuine smile come across your face, think about why you are smiling, and I am sure you will realize that in someway your mind has been awakened!!!
I love the idea of always trying to have an awakened mind...to see the most important things- which are sometimes the most simple things!
