Many leaves, One Tree……..When a small task taught me a big lesson.
#gratitude #shelsilverstein #yamas #niyamas #yoga #quotes
Earlier this year, before leaving for my Yoga Teacher Training in Portugal, I found myself completely consumed by the sadness of the ever worsening refugee crisis and I was going to bed most nights feeling completely helpless. I had become emotionally attached and felt like the world was being overrun with pain, fuelled by fear and greed.
One day in Portugal our philosophy teacher @alisonboon laid out some cards and let us choose the one we felt a deep connection to, I chose this one: ‘Many leaves, One tree’.
This amazing quote from Shel Silverstein helped to remind me that we are all connected, we are all from one source and we all share the same energy.
As a slowly turned the card over I saw a small task that read: List your sources of:
- happiness
- love
- courage
- friendship
- strength
- laughter
I rolled my eyes at what seemed a silly task, took out my pen and started to write down everything that sprang into my mind. After 10 minutes I looked down at the page and realised that what had seemed like such a simple task had just helped me to see things so much clearer.
At times we can become attached to things, often unconsciously, that can cause us to feel pain, fear and anxiety. We can become attached to our thoughts, expectations, opinions and criticisms and it becomes harder and harder to disassociate from these and show gratitude for the sources of joy in our day to day activities.
In her Yamas and Niyamas book Deborah Adele says ‘The world and others simply reflect back to us what we are seeing, not what is there…You can experiment with this truth by changing your story about what you see. You will notice the world changes to fit the story you are telling’
The act of completing the small, simple task made me realise that by not focussing on the strength, resilience, compassion and love in the world I had begun to lose my own strength and resilience.
So please, take some time out to try this today. This card found me at the perfect moment in my life, I hope it finds you too x
