Wednesday 14 November 2012

An affirmation: on returning home after being away

Isn't it such a gift to go away and leave one's everyday life behind for just a little while? And then isn't it also a gift to return to it, hopefully refreshed and with perspective regained and energy renewed? 

This is how I am feeling after a flying (but very precious) visit to my dear parents in England. I love the fresh eyes this gives me for my home, my everyday tasks, and especially my beloved two. It reminds me again (again, again) of the preeminence of love, and the smallness and pettiness of the concerns I can get caught up in. And so I long to recommit myself to this life, these dear people, the tasks and days I have been given, with all that I am and have; and particularly to commit myself to love above all - to love in all its patience, kindness, gentleness, forgiveness, trust, and delight. The sort of love that my small self, caught up in it-self, cannot manage, but that my True Self - centred and sourced from deep within and far beyond - can receive and live as gift. 

So this morning I re-member a simple meditation and affirmation that I wrote last summer on returning from six weeks in Europe, and I offer it to you too, as a way to re-call and rededicate yourself to the life YOU have been given. Because "This is my life!" Try saying this out loud, with a shifting emphasis on each word in turn, and feel what this means for you and what it releases inside you.

          THIS is my life.
          Right here, right now.
          It is not elsewhere
          and it is no different than it is.

          This IS my life.
          I cannot imagine myself out of or beyond it.
          Neither can any shortcomings,
          disappointments or misgivings
          alter or remove what IS.

          This is MY life.
          No-one else can live it.
          And only I have the power to choose 
          what it is
          or what it can be.

          This is my LIFE.
          It is not a game or a show
          or a dress rehearsal.
          It is LIFE itself, given to me,
          and more than the sum of its parts.

          THIS. IS. MY. LIFE.

          (Tuesday 28th June 2011)