Exploring an invitation to accept, receive and enjoy the bitter, sour parts of life.
A blessing backstory.
The Picture:
The picture above, it’s one of those that changes when you turn it upside down! The lines on the page don’t change, but what you see changes because you’re willing to change perspective because you’re open to another point of view, another possibility. And that’s what this story’s about.
So have you flipped it? Amazing right?
The backstory:
One of my Taiwanese second language English students shared she will soon be celebrating the Chinese New Year and that there are many traditional foods eaten, including some that are bitter and sour. She said the ancestors included these to teach about receiving and even enjoying these flavours, that they symbolize the inevitable bitter and sour experiences of life and that growing the capacity to receive and enjoy these flavours will increase the enjoyment of life itself.
As an adult, she enjoys and looks forward to these foods, but as a child, she didn’t like them at all!
I asked if she would tell me more of her story, her journey from not being excited by these foods at all, to now enjoying and appreciating them.
She shared that as a child she resisted this idea. She didn’t want to accept that these sour and bitter flavours and experiences were part of life, especially since the fairytales she read, focused on the happy parts of life. In her young mind, she believed life should follow the fairytales, where ‘bitter’ and ‘sour’ aren’t part of the ‘happily ever after.’
During her college years, she started to get more used to these foods, but she still didn’t enjoy them. Then after college, her palate continued to develop, and she began to enjoy them.
With time and letting go of resistance, with acceptance, openness and willingness, to the possibility of enjoying, appreciating even savouring these flavours, things changed.
It’s not that the flavours changed. These foods remain bitter and sour. She changed. She grew her capacity for what she experienced as ‘enjoyable’.
What a gorgeous lesson. The magical transformation that’s possible when being open to broadening what we define as pleasurable, as enjoyable.
When there is a willingness, a softness, an invitation to receive the pleasure from the bitter and sour.
Perhaps the beauty, the delicious pleasures and the gifts of the sour and bitter parts of life are things like increased compassion and sensitivity, a deeper genuine appreciation for life itself…
A blessing, my wish for you:
May you respectfully witness your resistance to the possibility of enjoying the sour, bitter experiences of life,
May you playfully hold space for the ‘ifs’ and ‘buts’, the ‘arguments’ and ‘judgements’, allowing their expression without being drawn in,
And in the meantime, may you be open to this possibility of increasing your capacity to receive pleasure and joy from more of life, even the bitter and sour parts,
May you try this possibility on for size to see if it adds value to your quality and experience of life!
So may it be.
Because what if…. Just what if… life wishes nothing more than for us to experience and receive the love from it ALL. What if it’s not about life-changing, but about us growing our capacity to receive. What if that’s the work of our lifetime?
Alive Loren: celebrating soulful joyous living
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