A friend asked me today "how are you doing?"

And because that is a close friend, I had the luxury to pause and reflect instead of answering with a trained default reflex "I'm fine, thanks!"

What I saw was that the answer to the simple question has a lot of nuance and that is why I don't like it as a casual polite part of a greeting.

Today I saw with crystal clarity that the answer to the question "how are you" depends on the perspective that I take. I can choose so many. For example, if I looked through my daughter's eyes, I would be miserable because she hates cleaning and today my plan is to clean our home. If I look at the same situation from a person who doesn't have a home, I am overcome with gratitude, because I have a home to clean. If I look through my default setting, I want my kid to be happy, but she is miserable about upcoming cleaning project, so I can be miserable because she is miserable. But if I zoom out a little bit (a lot actually LOL), I can remember that when I was a kid, I hated cleaning too, so I can understand, relate and be compassionate about it and remember that there is absolutely nothing wrong with her hating the task and me still encouraging her to do it.

I can be mad about the fact that my order of water proof shoes got cancelled after two weeks of them telling me it was on its way. And I WAS disappointed about it for about a minute but somehow now I am not mad about it anymore. Which is quite curious to me.... I am still going to have wet feet every time I take my dog out for another couple of weeks, and I know there is a version of me that would be quite upset about.

And the reason I am not mad, but find it kind of funny now is because I zoomed out enough to see that it is just life doing its thing. Life is not meant to be a continuous non-stop rainbow. Life is 50-50. Sometimes it's a rainbow, sometimes it's raining cats and dogs, sometimes it's tranquil and sometimes it's stormy. It is not personal, it is just life. And it is not a new or sensational realization, not at all. I remember reading Byron Katie books a decade ago where she was talking about the futility of fighting reality. I understood it with my mind then, but now this truth seems to finally have landed into my cells. There is absolutely no point to be mad or upset about cleaning or cancelled orders, it is just life doing its thing.

Those discomforts are the exact places where we get an invite for ALCHEMY. Those are the PORTALS for our growth. My Soul came here, to this planet, to Earth School, using Liz Gilberts words, to learn things, to have experiences, to expand. There is purpose to everything that happens. When I see a beautiful rainbow (there were so many this past week!), I feel delight and awe. And when there's a change of plans, like canceled orders or deviation from original plans for Christmas I feel some discomfort. That discomfort is an invitation for expansion. We have the freedom to choose what we are going to do with that. I can complain about wet shoes or I can laugh at it and decide that I am meant to have EVEN BETTER shoes. I can try to stay with old Christmas plans or I can choose to adopt and make them even better.
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Talking about Christmas plans. I wrote about creating inner peace during the holiday season and beyond a few weeks ago and wanted to update you on how I apply the steps in my real life.

My original plan was to have a big Christmas dinner on Christmas Eve because it is my preference. I am not a big fan of spending the big day in the kitchen. My family agreed and I was all excited. Then my daughter's horse riding teacher said that she will teach on Christmas Eve and therefore my daughter wanted to go to her lessons, which in turn automatically canceled my original big plans of having Christmas dinner on Christmas Eve.... I had choices and I could have said "no" to taking my daughter to her classes. I contemplated that, I felt into it. And I chose to give my daughter a gift of time spent with horses, because it is her favourite thing in the whole wide world. It felt good in my body. After I talked to myself, I talked to my husband. He was cool with the new plan. So, now all three of us will go to the barn, we will bring hot chocolate with us and have a chance to hangout and catch up with each other. Truth be told, this year has been rough on our relationship. After the riding class we will pick up sushi. As for the Christmas dinner, we will have it on Christmas Day along with some other fun activities that we planned. And we are not cooking a turkey, on purpose, by choice.

The magic is not in what I do. The magic is in who I AM while doing whatever it is I choose to do.
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So, how are YOU doing? And please, don't give me "I'm fine" because we both know that life is much, much richer than that. Hit reply and tell me all about it, with nuance and all. Because I LOVE hearing about the nuance and bigness of your life. I savour every word that you share.

With that, I want to send you my love and warmest wishes for the holidays. Whatever you choose to do or feel, you are right where you are supposed to be. Receive the gifts.

Love,

Nataliya

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