The Bliss Mistress Guide: Perfect Moments

As I am writing this article, I am nesting cross-legged on my bed, since the dining room table on which I like to sit while crafting words, is cluttered with the contents of my kitchen cabinets. Dishes, non-perishable food items, cleaning supplies, silverware and the like are scattered about the living room as well, covered with drywall dust, like the remnants of a desert storm that swept through in the middle of the night. My contractor and his assistant are at the moment, installing new kitchen cabinets and countertops. I am thinking that it is a good thing I am not dental phobic, since the drill that is placing the screws in them, reminds me of root canal work. A few weeks ago the bathroom, hallway, spiral staircase and living room were getting their makeover. Home Depot and Lowes have become home away from home, as I prowled the aisles, comparison shopping, picking out items both functional and decorative. I am pleased with the interim outcome and await the finishing touches that will allow me to put the erstwhile displaced items back in their new digs.

This is surprisingly only slightly unsettling for this recovering Type A, who has become accustomed to some sense of order in her life. I am getting used to letting some things just BE. A spiritual practice of the highest order.

One thing that is helping me get through this is reading a book called From Scared to Sacred: Lessons in Learning to Dance with Life by fellow wordsmith, Carol Woodliff. Although the journey that she took to get to the point on which she stands now, is different, some of her realizations and aha moments are similar to mine. She had begun acting as a vessel, a hollow reed and channel for a beneficent Voice, which is how I have referred to my guiding Source as well. Initially it was disturbing to her, as it was to me. We both wondered what people would think if they knew. I laugh now because I have been a social worker for 27 years (some of the time working in a psychiatric hospital) and I know the difference between symptoms of psychosis and communing with the Divine. Carol and I are in the latter group, fortunately. Her musings could have come from my consciousness and I find myself laughing and crying my way through the pages. One chapter is called What If This Moment Is Perfect? The concept is a reality test that I use often when experience bump up against what I think ‘should’ be so.

My call and response list includes:

I should be more patient and understanding vs. I am embracing increasing amounts of let-go of how I think people ‘ought to’ be. I am ever more compassionate with myself as well.

I should know better than to (fill in the blank) vs. I am a work in progress, learning as I go.

I should be more successful/farther along in my work vs. I am building my life at just the right pace.

You get the picture, and I imagine you have a laundry list of your own.

One of the things Carol suggests doing is making a Perfect Moments list. Some of them are on the surface joyous and others, profoundly poignant, albeit sad. Three of mine involved the death of loved ones.

Doing ‘playouts’ at the gym, feeling the sweat drip down my body as I am shedding layers physically and emotionally.

Floating down the Delaware River on an inner tube, with my friend Ondreah as we are gazing upward at a cerulean blue, white cotton fluffy cloud sky, and the water carried us and we surrendered to its pace.

Singing and dancing along at a Counting Crows concert this summer with my friends Gary and Janet.

Sitting in a drumming circle with my friends Peggy and Ron as we improvised on all sorts of percussion instruments, letting ourselves be guided by what I call ‘the toys’ themselves.

Immersing myself in writing, allowing the words to flow through unabated and uncensored.

Speaking to groups of participants in my workshops, being in the flow, not always aware of what will come through next.

Sitting by my mother’s bedside while she was on hospice, as we discussed life and death with grace and ease and although I was not with her at the moment of her transition, I know we have no unfinished business and the love lingers.

Holding my father’s hand and kissing his forehead as he took his last breath.

Saying goodbye to my husband nearly 14 years ago when he ‘left the building’ and moved on to his next incarnation. This led to much of the work I am doing now, including writing for Wisdom.

Each of these experiences reminds me that everyone is on loan to us and helps me appreciate them all the more. It is often the more painful parts of our existence that have us scratching our heads thinking “How can this be perfect?” The sun is shining through my curtained window as Hurricane Isaac is roaring through Southern states in this country, wreaking havoc. I am remembering a similar event that whipped through my own life 20 years ago, while we were living in Homestead, Florida. Hurricane Andrew ripped us from our moorings and cast us adrift for a bit, but it was that change that enabled us to move back home to Pennsylvania where I much preferred to live and to re-creating our lives with a greater appreciation for my life and the people in it. I have become the queen of reframe and am able to see the symbolic pony amidst the manure and have begun to appreciate the perfect imperfection of each precious moment.

Edie Weinstein, a.k.a. Bliss Mistress is a work in progress, an opti-mystic who sees the world through the eyes of possibility, a multi-faceted multi-tasker, interfaith minister, social worker, coach, colorfully creative writer and dynamic motivational speaker. She is the author of The Bliss Mistress Guide To Transforming the Ordinary Into the Extraordinary. www.liveinjoy.org