What is it that renews you? I don’t care how long the renewal lasts. What renews you, for a moment, for an hour, for a day?
How long since you last bent over a sink and splashed cold, running water into your face? The sudden, breath-taking feeling of the cold water on my face always make me feel, even if for a little while, like there is something new going on, helping me to see that I can change my perspective on anything, if I choose.
Have you ever gone for a walk at the brink of daylight as it began or ended, at either end of the day? A walk at dawn or at dusk somehow calls me into my heart and into the sky (where all the color is surging with the extreme changes of sunlight) to ponder both where I am (have been, am going) and how things are in the earth. This kind of walk at this time of day refreshes my perspective, inside and out.
What simple, daily practices, renew you, change you, and call you into a new moment? Choose one today, and practice it with intention. Then, open yourself to the Universe.
Bob Patrick
Playing music renews me; most especially playing the lower notes in the flute register.
Looking at a blue sky with green trees in the foreground.
Smelling the green right after a rain.
Seeing a baby or child smile directly at me. (I can get that at my job most days).
I think we forget this aspect of needing to renew ourselves. I tend to keep pushing myself forward until I give out-then-exhausted I breakdown in some way (sleep too much or eat too much…that kind of thing). That’s what I see this world doing too…pushing too much-too hard-too quickly until it has a mini (or major) collapse of some kind. I agree that if instead of allowing ourselves to become overwhelmed we purposefully stop to renew ourselves so much would be different in our lives and in the world.