Moving our vision to the awe of life nourishes us. Easier said than done during illness. When we are chronically ill, we simply have to focus on ME to be able to move through the issues. Then, at some point, we have a sense that it is time to look up, outside of that intense focus. It is time to look at the awe in life. The more we see it, the more we move from ME to WE. We have more compassion for others because our vision has increased through awe. Tricky stuff when we are ill.
Chronic illness sucks the life out of us. Our give-a-darns get broken. We quite honestly have to shift some of our focus and care we used to have for others and put it on ourselves, for survival.
Hopefully during chronic illness, we have moments of looking up and outside of ourselves to remind us of the awe in life that really does exist. It is harder to see it when we are chronically ill. Illness can feel like a vacuum has a powerful force on us, sucking us in with a death grip.
That is when we just have to find some awe in life, to be able to connect with anything and anyone outside of that death grip, even if it is only for a moment.
The healthier I got, the more I could do this. When I was in the depth of illness, I had a hard time connecting with the awe of life. We can have the understanding that it is good for us but in reality this can be very hard to do during the yuck-and-muck of illness.
So, all we can do is the very best we can do every single day. Doing that one single thing is success!!!!
Finding Awe
Awe comes in many forms. Nature provides many majestic scenes that bring awe to us. Get outside if you can and take in an awe inspiring scene. If you cannot get outside, the internet is filled with majestic scenery in the forms of pictures and videos and movies galore.
People, hummm. People are tricky but they also possess the awe that can change our vision of life and the world we live in. Humans are highly complicated so give them and us a break, we are all in this together.
Moving From Me to We
Awe takes the ME and turns it into WE.
As we find awe in nature and people we expand ourselves. We have more space for others. We crave more of others. We have more of an ability to engage in WE, which is community.
Community may be your immediate family and friends that you are able to engage with at a deeper level because you have connected with awe recently.
Community may be church or surrounding town that has peeked your interest again.
Community may be a new set of friends and a new location because AWE has expanded your range of sight.
Everyone is different and that is okay. We do not have to have perfect awe moments to reconnect us with the rest of the world immediately. Play with it and see what happens.
While in the midst of chronic illness, give yourself a break. You may have a moment of awe for a single second one week and not see it again for weeks, or even months. Then something happens and you look up and see an awe inspired scene and remember that there is and will be life outside of the current illness you are in.
Many blessing to all of you,
