Expansion

I'm in the last week of the Presence Process, which I imagine I'll just start over again once it's finished, and the thing this week is to appreciate ourselves and our lives. Basically the idea is that what we think about expands, so think about good things and that will expand. It's actually quite a bit deeper than that, but without you actually going and reading and getting into the Presence Process, that's about all I can say.

So yesterday I meditated at CHEO in the afternoon as I hadn't quite gotten it together to do my meditation earlier. I was in between two classes I teach there to some teens and did my breathing thing and then the second group came into the room just as I had finished the meditation and was doing the exercise of coming up with a list of 5 things I appreciated about myself or my life. I told them what I was doing and they didn't hesitate to then jump in and help me out, but it wasn't like I was stuck. They saw an opportunity. "You're a good mom." "You influence and touch people in a positive way." "You're really good at being with people when they have a problem. You can be close to them. It's easy to be close to you." Wow.

I got my 5 things fast. Then we turned it around. I asked them if they wanted to appreciate themselves or have something appreciated about them. We did that for a little bit but what was really obvious was how easy it was to appreciate other people and how much more challenging it was to appreciate themselves.

The other thing Michael Brown gets at is that we find what we're looking for. So if we don't like what we're finding, consider that we're actually looking for that. If we don't really think that's what we're looking for, switch it up. A few weeks ago I knew I didn't have a sun roof, so I didn't have one. (If you remember the story, I did have one, I just didn't know it.)

So I invite you to come up with a short list of 5 things you appreciate about yourself or your life. If you get into Week 10 of the Presence Process you do that twice a day for a week, so there are 70 things to come up with and no repeats allowed!

I was visiting Jonathan Foust's blog today and came across this video so I'm going to grab it and let you see it here. He has a great blog though - I've mentioned it before and I'm doing it again.