Gratitude Journal – Day 198 – January 15, 2015

Reframing…..
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how you look at joy….. He came to give a talk on creativity this evening, how to ‘get unstuck’ and one could hear a pin drop as each of us soaked in what he had to say. He said, ‘there’s a chance that I may make you mad at some point when I challenge your beliefs, and if that does happen just hit ‘flush.’’ So many nuggets of wisdom being shared and we brought out our smart phones to take photos of his slides so that we would not miss a thing.

I thought to myself, I want to capture more than just a photo of his words, and pulled an empty journal and pen from my bag. The journal, given to me by the author of a book filled with mystery, represented the opportunity to write my own story on its’ blank pages with a pen handcrafted by a local artisan. In my hands were tools of creativity. And I wrote my name, the Hawaiian name myDarlin’ Robert Kenui Pope gave to me when we first met, on the first page. “This journal belongs to Makalani.” The words I write are not my own, but my interpretation of what he said and the ideas that originate from those words don’t belong to me, but to anyone who gazes upon and embraces them.

Reframing life….how do you interpret life? myDarlin’ said to me one day as we were driving down the road to home, ‘I can’t imagine ever being without you baby.’ ‘Me either Darlin’, me either’, I replied. Reframing my life becomes quite literal now, for going forward that frame only has me, not me and him. Snapping back into the moment, it was as if I was observing the room but as in a movie not a participant. ‘You have to be willing to do something really scary in the service of what your passion is….’ He couldn’t possibly know that sometimes it’s just plain scary facing the day without myDarlin’ by my side. I pause for a moment, and hear myDarlin’ say, ‘don’t be skeered, just trust in the Lord.’ ‘I do myDarlin’, I do and he has answered your prayer of giving me peace and understanding.’ He said to all of us that we are just here on this earth for a short moment, a flicker of time, so why worry about things that really don’t matter. I smiled and nodded my head in agreement, as we had learned this lesson years and years ago.

And his wish for what we would take out of his talk, was this. When this year is finished and you look back over it, ask yourself: Did you find joy in your life? Did you go somewhere you have never been? What do you have to lose? And I will reply, ‘Yes my friend, I found joy in the extraordinary moments that look strangely like ordinary in this strange new world, a world I had never been to before, a world without myDarlin’.

Tonight, as I close my journal, clip the pen on the cover and place it into my bag, I am filled with gratitude knowing that this coming year both I, and life itself will challenge me in ways I cannot begin to imagine. And in the challenge I shall trust in the Lord, and find joy every step of the way.

#KeepLookingUp #GetUnstuck #FindingJoy