Ordinary Life is Interesting Enough:
 Gratitude as An Essential Life-Practice
 ~ Patricia Lynn Reilly

Imagine a woman who is interested in her own life.
A woman who embraces her life as teacher, healer, and challenge.
Who is grateful for the ordinary moments of beauty and grace.

In the very beginning, the girl-child is interested in herself and involved in self-motivated adventures. She moves through each day with an exuberant strength, a remarkable energy, and a contagious liveliness. Every experience is filled with wonder and awe. It is enough to gaze at the redness of an apple, to watch the water flow over the rocks in a stream, to listen to the rain dance, to count the peas on her plate. She is a natural explorer of everything in her world. Life is her teacher, her challenge, and her delight. She is never bored. There is always another adventure and project to turn toward. Her ordinary life is interesting enough.

As she grows, this vitality dies. From her first reading of Sleeping Beauty, she longs to be delivered from ordinary life and transported to the realm of fairy tales. She turns away from the Vital One she once was. Her intimate connection to life's unfolding is severed. No longer is ordinary life her challenge, inspiration, and delight; it is boring. She waits for a savior to come along and rescue her from "ordinary life."

She longs for human saviors: "if only" she had a different partner, job, or family; a life-changing insight or treatment; a big lottery win. She longs for divine saviors: "if only" a vision from heaven; a miracle; a definite word from god/goddess/higher power through her therapist or guru. Her life remains on hold as she waits for the Deliverer to come. Eventually, she needs a drug of some sort - Prince Charming, alcohol, an adrenaline rush—to feel what she once felt spontaneously in the midst of her ordinary life.

Years later, wise teachers enter the woman’s life: a therapist, women’s circle, or beloved friend. They remind her of what she once knew: "Vital One, you move through life with an exuberant strength, a remarkable energy, and a contagious liveliness. Your ordinary life is interesting enough. It will be your challenge, inspiration, and delight. Embrace it with respect. Express it with all the colors of the rainbow. Trust its lessons above the prescriptions of experts. What you know is true. What you feel is real. What you see is there. Your ordinary life is good. It is very good."

As we heal into the present, we discover again what we once knew: ordinary life is interesting enough. And to our surprise, in the midst of working and playing; crying, laughing, and needing; while surrounded by red apples and spilt milk; vacuum cleaners and computers; ordinary women and men; dogs and cats and vets; and rivers that flow with water not wine, we encounter Gratitude.

Embrace your ordinary life, whatever its wrapping, for in the embrace you will hear the whisper of Gratitude. Listen for her in the ordinary activities of your day, in the ordinary encounters with loved ones, and in the ordinary challenges that rise to greet you each morning. She speaks from the depths of you, in the voice of your ordinary life.

Daughter of Woman, sustain interest in your own life.
Embrace it as your teacher, healer, and challenge.
Welcome its ordinary moments of beauty and grace with gratitude.

~ Patricia Lynn Reilly

Patricia Lynn Reilly offers cyber circles and retreats that support women’s empowerment. Please visit her site for details: http://www.openwindowcreations.com