Wednesday, June 27, 2012

What I meant to say

Sometimes we open our mouth to say something to someone and out pops this horrible, inappropriate comment that stings and wounds the minute it is unhappily uttered. If we could look inside the closet of the mind that houses our words, we would see how badly cluttered it is. Old hurts, old memories tumbled about, broken promises hanging from the closet rod, lost hopes and dreams spilling from overstuffed boxes. Of course, those things fall out first the moment the closet door is opened. If we aren't careful, it is all that ever comes out, and we speak words of bitterness and despair daily. Suppose today we could spend the day in mindful meditation, and clean out this word closet. Suppose we could finally discard the broken things, the shoes without a mate, things that don't fit, out dated and stained. Suppose we could organize our thoughts so that there was a place for kindness, encouragement, and civility and those boxes were easily marked and readily accessible so we could speak those words without fumbling. How wonderful it would be to open our mouth to say something to someone, and, instead of having to apologize later,  what we said was what we really meant to say, with love.

1 comment:

  1. My friend, Sharon, is coming to help me clean out my closet on Friday. I have already thrown out tons of stuff and need to do more. I want lightness in my life right now -- downsizing appears to be a limitless process. And down sizing old opinions and resentments is the best of all. It's somewhat easy to throw away what you know doesn't work any more. But some old thoughts are actually still beautifully enticing -- maybe someday I will be 30 again and be able to fit into that skirt I loved. Maybe someday I will get to say to that person "you hurt my feelings." Maybe someday is today, and if I live in right here, right now, clutter - real and imagined - is just trash.

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