Wabi Sabi Wednesday. Make some space.

A ritual.

When we are overwhelmed with the demands on our time. When the house is dirty, there are errands to run, deadlines loom, and the kids are clamoring for attention.  When we feel our grip is slipping, we can take a moment to gently, little by little, shift our perspective on the imperfect, impermanent, and incomplete parts of our lives.

In Japanese tradition, wabi sabi is a concept typically applied to objects. Wabi sabi celebrates, paradoxically, the  imperfection in objects, as being innately perfect and beautiful.

It’s about shifting our perspective. Appreciating the chaos and unpredictability in our busy lives, which opens us to the creative possibilities available in each moment.  Even when the kids are sick, the laundry basket is overflowing, and the deadlines are pressing –  wabi sabi is waiting to provide relief.

Each week, on Wednesday, we make a little bit of space to step back and look at some part of our beautiful, crazy life that is making us, well, crazy.  We take a compassionate look at what is causing friction and how we might find the perfection and beauty in the middle of the mess.

This week is a little different

There is huge, enormous, transformative, value to stepping in and getting comfortable with the sh*t that is messy and uncomfortable in our lives.  When we can be totally present with it, and get a little bit of perspective, we can start to actually work with what we’ve got, instead of resisting it.

We can have big or small problems in our lives. We can be conflicted, we can be out of work, we can be confused, we can have children that don’t behave as we’d like, we can be overweight, we can be sick.  We can even be living all of this stuff at the same time.  It hurts.  And it’s completely normal to want to avoid it and resist feeling the hard emotions that come with our difficulties.

Practicing wabi sabi, we go straight in. We courageously face the crazy mess of living, head on, with a smile – trusting that it really is these apparent weaknesses that will will find the bedrock of our success.  We relax our shoulders, soften our belly, and sink in, in order to make friends with all that stuck-ness.  Eventually finding the perfection in it all.

All of this is held in a greater context

Unspoken, and often unnoticed when we are bravely facing the crazy mess of our lives is everything else.  Even when we’re getting cozy with our feelings and thoughts, there is an endless supply of good stuff that is hovering around, waiting to be noticed.  So not only is there the perfection to be found in the mess, but there’s just, well, the inherent perfection!

Wonder and appreciation can be hard when we’re in the thick of it

Gratitude is powerful.  Especially when we are embracing the more difficult parts of our lives.  Intentionally practicing gratitude gives us even more space and breathing room – we begin to see the larger patterns of goodness that are at work in our lives, which makes it easier to bravely work with wabi sabi in the not-so-pretty corners of our world.

The secret of this is that by searching out and noticing the goodness that is already present, it becomes easier to find the perfection in the mess.  Endless ripples of wabi sabi.

I’ll start.

• Waking up to birds singing in the middle of Rome – it only happens in the springtime and it brings me great joy.

• Clara slipping her hand into mine on the way to school this morning, while she told me a story about her friends.

• Doing work I love, that is incredibly gratifying, that I feel makes the world a better place.

• Sweet emails from my husband.  I love getting brief updates about his day in my inbox.

• Mike- our family personal assistant and all-around go-to guy.  We are all deeply indebted to him and he really makes so much possible for each member of our family.

• My health.  After 2+ years of dealing with near-chronic pain, it is miraculous to wake up and move through my day with little to no pain.  I have a much deeper appreciation of my body and how much physical pain impacts our lives.

• Coaches that inspire me and help me be my best, like her, and her, and, oh, definitely her.  There are so many, but these are the ones that spring to mind this morning.

• My Mac.  I cannot believe the things that this computer does!  Every time I have a thought, “Oh, I need to find a program that does X.” I google it, only to find our my Mac has built in secret powers!!  A few recent finds: zip files created by the OS, making videos on the computer through iMovie, and editing audio through Garage Band.

• Skype.  Keeping connected to family, friends, and clients all over the world.  I can hardly imagine what it would have been like to live overseas even 15 years ago without Facebook and Skype!

• A beautiful, wild, park to run in just a block away.  Which I am going to take advantage of now.

My wabi sabi challenge to you (should you choose to accept) – develop a daily, conscious, ritual of gratitude as part of your wabi sabi practice.  Watch it blossom and feel it soften your relationship to the challenges.

Share in the comments, if you’d like.  I love the company.

Guess what? The Wabi Sabi Virtual Retreat starts next week! There are still spots available, if you would like learn more about wabi sabi…

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