It’s one of those mornings when I feel just okay. Not great, yet still managing to feel grateful. Not ill but feeling a little ill at ease. My meditation didn’t shift it but of course, it gave me the impetus to stay open. I’m stretching and yawning into my day and looking for that little something to tip my perspective, to gently ease my centre of gravity back to the heart and away from the dissatisfied mind. I rummage through old journals and re-find this beautiful quote:

If we have no peace, it is because we have forgotten that we belong to each other. – Mother Teresa

I have read that quote a thousand times and always felt it move deep within my soul. But something stronger happened today; something fresh. I immediately thought about very young children. All their smiling, giggling and gurgling curiosity. Or their grimacing, tear glistening faces, as their full-throttle lungs burst out screams and cries. They burn through the gamut of emotions in minutes with no residue; cycling through it all day when the need arises to be fed, cleaned, watered or to be soothed by human contact. 

Children have no choice but to belong. If they had no natural need for belonging they would not survive. And that’s the key … it is we adults who put the word ‘survive’ in their equations. It might be semantics but I think there’s more to it than that. Babies innately expect, because they belong, to thrive – not just survive. They are powering along at every angle and degree to expand outward into the world. 

Children power along at every angle and degree to expand outward into the world. Image: Mi Pham

Thriving Over Surviving

I realised that when I am feeling a little, ‘blah’, it’s because I am falling into my survive groove and not my thrive groove. Babies aren’t busy surviving. That’s a grown-up ‘mind’ concept. Babies are busy bustling thrivers.

I made a promise to myself to look to those who naturally belong, those who have a choiceless-choice for belonging and contact. Those whose egos and fear drivers are not so formed and rigid. I make a commitment to seek out the inspiration of innocents; babies, toddlers, children, and Peter Pan grown-ups and animals too. The complexities of adult minds can’t get me out of a morning funk, but leaning into innocence, and unadulterated life-force can. 

I did some googling and came across a video with compassion guru, Tara Brach, who in some ways speaks of what I am trying to say here: if we truly belong to one another we can borrow each other’s wings when ours are a little tired or lack-lustre. That’s what finding inspiration is: we can always borrow another’s wings non-intrusively. We can borrow the irrepressible essence-energy of a being, or thing, without diminishing that being or thing itself. 

Thank you for your wings Tara, for the wings from the people in the story in your video, and for the children’s wings towards the end of this video who made me laugh out loud. My day is looking full of thrive, promise and flight, even though my wings are resting. 

This following video is so inspiring, so full of delight —when children are asked, “What does Love Mean?”

What Does Love Mean? with Tara Brach.

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Are there moments you recognise when you’ve needed another’s wings? Or perhaps you’ve offered yours freely? How do we make connections through belonging? Are you ready to seek inspiration so as to forget about merely surviving and get impassioned about scintillating thriving?  

May we all share our wings so that we can all reach new heights of Unity, Peace and Love.

Team Uplift