Julianna - on Looking

I am getting ready to go to Italy for a Retreat in a few days. For weeks, I have known that Sunday was the departure date, just to find out that actually, the 31st is SATURDAY. And so, just like that, one precious day of preparation went away. In the end,  as always, I will be on the plane and what really had to happen will have happened. The rest will either wait or become obsolete by the time I come home. I love how this works.

Anyhoo.

As the sun shines up here on the island, it is a joy to work a lot, and also "be" a lot. A little bit in the garden,  a little bit on the water, these days are precious.

Also precious are the beautiful souls that share my work. Our team is small, and yet it is rich. Rich in heart, rich in courage, rich in joy and also rich in a particular brand of kick buttness. There is a lot of love swimming around between all of us, not much stress and a constant passion for a blend of kindness, inspiration and thirst for growth.

Many mornings, we will share a text message with something special to kick start our days.

This morning, as I was looking at my to-do list and drinking a cup of tea, this came through, written by Julianna and intended just for us.

By mid-day, I re-read it and asked for her permission to share her words.

With her blessing, there they are. I hope you will enjoy them as much as I have.

"I was thinking about this concept and how it is woven into our daily lives and our encounters with others as well as with ourselves. I felt like sharing.

When you can't find something, and we are mentally going over all the places we "looked"
 We might tell ourselves: "well, it wasn't there I already looked" but then when you look back a second or even third time it will be hidden under something or right in plain sight, and we think "how the heck did I miss that, it was right there the whole time!"

Then there are the times when someone else will offer to help us and go look and find it exactly "where we looked" and much to our surprise they reveal it to us.

I think life is like that sometimes...there are parts to ourselves that ARE there that we feel aren't there because "we already looked "and didn't find it.

 Deep down, they are there if we just look at a different angle or under a few more deeper layers.

 Some times it takes someone else with a fresh set of eyes to see it and show us it was there the whole time.

This week I am glad to have found "courage" that I thought I lost.
 If you had asked me a year ago, I would have said: "no, it's not there, I already checked there."

So I just invite us all to go and double-check places we think we have already looked. What is it you'd like to find? Or maybe go help someone find something that they believe is lost that you can see in plain sight.
Love you all -  have a wonderful day!"

She's pretty wonderful, isn't she?

Sending you all a big hug - and next time I write, it will be from Italy!