Life is Precious
Today I happened to run into a lovely friend of mine at Costco, where in typical fashion we proceeded to catch up on our families, events, etc. We even touched on a recent tragedy where a young person lost their life. It was heartbreaking news, and my friend stated that it just makes her think again “How Precious Life Is”.
We said our goodbyes and I continued my shopping. As I rounded the corner of the aisle I started to contemplate this statement “How precious life is”. When I think back through my own life, I acknowledge that I was so busy fulfilling my life obligations to my family, friends, jobs, my home and the world around me, that I never have truly contemplated how precious my own life is or actually placed personal value upon myself. That is, before I started my own healing journey. I used to just live my everyday life without much thought, without much intention or even consideration of how I can and should honour who I am.
We are all born, and for the most part parented by our own parents or some adult in our life. We learn and grow up within communities, amongst our peers and society in general. We learn so much from our environment, having experiences, some good, some not so good. We all have had big and small events and situations that have occurred in our lives that affect us. And as you know, our past experiences shape us in so many ways. These events/situations alter our way of thinking, our way of making decisions, our behavior, how we respond to the people and the world around us. Our past experiences can bring forward negative thinking patterns, limiting beliefs, self-imposed beliefs and emotional blocks/wounds. No one is immune to this, even if you were to grow up like Truman on The Truman Show. We cannot exist in this world without being affected in some way from our experiences.
If you are anything like I was, I had no idea prior to my healing journey how to process these emotions or even acknowledge my emotions in line with those situations. I didn’t know how important it was to give myself the gift of being in the moment. To give myself permission to truly process how I felt about a certain experience. To ask myself what I learnt from that experience. I used to pride myself in how well I could compartmentalize. But what I have learnt is that tactic is just avoidance, and all that avoidance did for me is cause physical ailments, chronic symptoms and dis-ease in my body. Those events/situations now are a filter that I think, see, respond and behave through. They affected my decisions, my relationships and how I saw myself. I didn’t know how precious I was and how to value myself. In fact, I didn’t even know I wasn’t valuing myself until I started my healing journey. It’s awakening from the mundane (recognizing and stepping out of routine, ordinary, or uninspiring life, seeking more meaningful and engaging experiences).
Our life is precious. We are precious and beautiful beings. We deserve and owe it to ourselves to have joy and happiness in our lives. It is worth the effort and time to understand why we think or behave a certain way, to have insight into who we are, and to become our true authentic selves.