We spend a lot of time thinking about faults. Our faults, those of people around us, our employers, politicians, even the world’s. In fact, once you start looking, you could spend a lifetime finding faults.
But finding faults makes us feel awful. It weighs us down and darkens our experience of life. Just as finding beauty boosts our experience of joy, finding faults pulls us into misery.
In fact, once we start looking at the world through a lens of joy and gratitude, we can recognize another world, hidden inside the one that we believed to be hopelessly flawed.
Once we start to recognize the light that shines from within each of us, we stand witness as it glows and flourishes, brightening the space that had been filled with shadows.
For me, motherhood was that pinnacle moment when I began to see how much light is in the world. My greatest teacher? My baby.
Babies are new to this world, possessed of an innocence that draws us right in. As we begin to bond and connect with them, we are drawn into their experience, surrounded by love and adoration. We find parts of ourselves awaken, those that yearn to nurture and nourish. We find our logical brains shutting down, bringing us into an experience of pure emotion and awe.
For me, those early days were some of the most pivotal in my life. While I didn’t recognize exactly what was happening at the time, I knew something inside was shifting, something I will be processing for the rest of this lifetime.
Parenting a newborn can provide a reset button, an opportunity to view one tiny soul as being entirely pure, and wanting to pour all of your light into them. Imagine if we shined this lens on everyone around us!
The vast majority of parents succeed in viewing their children through a lens of pure love, at least for an instant, now or then. What if we could sustain that focus in the lives of our children? What if we shined it on our spouses or companions? Our friends and families? Our coworkers? On world leaders?
The possibilities are endless. The more we approach our parenting from compassion, the more light we’re able to experience, and the more joy we have available to shine on our children. The same holds for every other relationship we have.
What if we could look past expectations, past deeds, even current behavior? What if we could see each person for the light that they bring to this world? What a beautiful world we would make.
