Saturday, August 23, 2014

MY APPLES!!!

I know this happens to all of us, but because I'm an author and blogger, I get to write all about it...for public consumption.
Several weeks ago, my normally "happy little joy-filled, life-is-so-magical" apple cart was rather violently overturned, in what seemed like a fraction of a second. My lovely, nicely maintained, aesthetically pleasing pile of apples was suddenly spread out, far and wide, and the cart toppled onto its side. I had spent the previous months, perhaps even years tending to this cart, polishing the apples, knowing that this entire little cart that I called my life, was going in a divinely protected and guided direction. La la la...down the path I stroll.
Then, seemingly out of the blue....KABOOM...over tips the cart. Apples thrown hither and yon!
After a good, long, tear-filled, profanity ridden tantrum,(which, by the way, lasted approximately 2 1/2 - 3 weeks), with the help of my amazing family, I turned my cart back upright, and I began picking up my apples.
One by one, among whimpering and 'woe is me' sighs, I collected my apples, and put them back in the cart. Some bruised, some split, some still whole and seemingly undamaged...all were going back into my cart. Same apples into the same cart.
Then I picked up one apple in particular. It was squashed and gooey. Not something I really wanted on my hands, let alone gooey-ing all over the rest of my apples. That's when I realized it. Maybe I shouldn't be collecting all these apples, in varying degrees of dissolve, and putting them BACK in my cart. BACK in my world. BACK in my life.
Clearly this little 'episode' of my life wasn't about apples, nor the apple cart in which I held them. This episode was more of an implosion of my construct of thoughts, beliefs, ideas and conditions in my life. In hindsight, I am able to see what happened to me as a total and complete mental/emotional meltdown. A few outside circumstances systematically combusted, resulting in the apparent collapse of my world - the turning over of my apple cart, the destruction of my paradigm. Life, as I knew it, blew up in my face.
Back to the apples. Lets entertain, for a moment, the apple cart metaphor. Our "apples" are the thoughts, beliefs, actions and habits that make up our experience of life.
Say your 'apples' get overturned. Do you pick them all up, and resume along your journey with the same, busted, bruised, beat up apples that don't really work for you anymore? Or, perhaps is it time, to sift through your own apple cart, and remove those that stink up the place!!
As I was 'reloading' my apples, I began to realize that there were some thoughts I'd had, ideas I'd entertained and actions I'd repeated that I didn't really want to keep around anymore. Things that were holding me back, keeping me 'stuck' and maybe even pushing me backwards.
It was within this realization, that I was able to be much more picky and precise about which apples I wanted to put back in my cart, and which ones I wanted to leave behind. As I did so, I also realized that since I had only picked up a select few of my previous 'apples', that left a lot of room for NEW, fresh and beautiful apples in my cart!

SO...here is my invitation to you! I invite you to take some time in the next few days, and really take a look in your own apple cart. Take a look at what beliefs you may have, that might be holding you back from living the way you'd truly like to live. What thoughts, actions or ideas might be stopping you from being fully happy and fully satisfied with all areas of your life? Its not always a fun process, (sometimes you may get some gooey apple gunk on you), but it is a wonderfully helpful process, and one that will definitely free up some space in your cart, where you can put new, crisp, beautiful apples!
Don't let rotten apples ruin your cart. You don't necessarily have to wait for the whole cart to be overturned, (aka total meltdown) before you can clear out your old apples. Take the time to clear them out, so you cart doesn't HAVE to get overturned!

With that, I bid you a wonderful apple cleansing process!

Until Next Time,
Jill

http://www.jillainethompson.com
https://www.facebook.com/ThePerfectCupofCoffeeBook?ref=hl
https://twitter.com/JillsPerfectCup



No comments:

Post a Comment