Meeting Miss Daisy

I had the privilege of meeting Miss Daisy while taking my friend’s dog for a walk this past Saturday. She is such a joyful soul and crept straight into my heart…

Daisy’s life recently took an unexpected turn: Two weeks ago she got hit by a car while running across the road full of excitement to get to her park. Her right front leg got severely injured and had to be amputated.

The morning I met her was just after her bandages came off and since the accident, it was her first time back in her local park. There she was running around playfully with her 3 legs. She had already adapted incredibly well!

Besides being touched by her injury, I was touched even more by how her life is continuing almost as if the accident didn’t happen. Irrespective of what happened, she is not living in a sad story. Despite being a little nervous, she was playfully running around in her park.

It made me think how this contrasts with how a human might have responded at this point in time:

“My life is ruined!”
“Look how my body is malformed!”
“People will stare at me!”
“No one will ever love me!”
“I should have listened to my parents!”
“I’m so stupid!”

It’s almost as if humans can’t look at an event without creating a sad story… a story proclaiming that something is missing or deeply wrong with your life.

This brings me to how important mindfulness is for all of us: You can only be present to this moment of life as it is all you and I ever have. Furthermore living in the power of now is living in this moment without a sad story.

Carrying a sad story about the past is one of the biggest things that weigh down the human spirit. What makes it difficult is that you can point to the evidence proving your sad story and ironically in the process, you keep the sad story vividly alive. Daisy can say: “Look, I have no right front leg! My life is so sad!”

Yet she doesn’t.

She plays in the park.

What happened yesterday or twenty years ago is no longer the point of this very moment of life. It is in the past. Irrespective what happened it doesn’t matter now. Life is right here beckoning to be lived without the sad stories of the past.

I’m asking you and I’m asking myself: What loss does the story of Daisy represent in your life? Where do you think or feel you are disabled? Where are you perceiving something to be severely lacking? Maybe it’s a failed relationship or marriage. Maybe something that’s currently missing in your relationship. Maybe it’s a failed business. Maybe you think you are too emotional. Or maybe it’s the opposite: you don’t know how to sense or read emotions at all. Maybe you are single and you think there is something wrong with you. Maybe your reputation was badly damaged by things other people did and said. Maybe you just think you are not good enough… (you fill in your own story).

And the question Daisy confronts me with is this: So what!?

What if in the bigger scale of our universe our sad victim stories actually don’t matter?

Who will you and I be without our sad victim stories?

Wishing you lots of courage to let go of your “sad victim” stories!

I would love to hear your comments and/or how you have shifted beyond your own victim stories. My email is heal@reflectioneer.com.

Much love,
Renier

ps Please note I’m not implying you should suppress any sadness. When you are sad, be sad and fully allow all the sadness to flow through you. And the invitation is to not create a sad story about your sadness and not to judge your sadness.