Hi friends,
A brief note this week. Wherever this finds you, I wish you peace and love.
This spring, I’m paying closer attention to the changes in trees, bushes, grass, and temperature. The birds are chirping, and the evenings are growing lighter — yippee, we can spend more moments outside in the fresh air. The great outdoors makes our souls come alive. There’s no need to analyze, only to notice the beauty of the natural world around us.
Do you want to spend more time outside?
The outside world also gives us an opportunity to check in with our senses, those magical human traits that connect us with other forms of life. In a way, genuine awareness of our senses is just a continual process of reminders — to tune in with our sense of how we hear a bird chirp, how we taste a fork full of salad, how the sun’s rays hit our skin, or how we feel a pen grace our hands. Our ability to see — to truly see and absorb a setting’s particulars — allows us to translate light into image signals for the brain to process.
Meditation is simply greater awareness — it’s paying attention to how to tie your shoes, how to walk with intent, how to sip a glass of water, and how to rest your head on the pillow at the end of the day. Each of these moments is a chance to engage our senses.
At UCLA, Coach John Wooden began the first practice of every season with a careful lesson on how to put on your socks and basketball shoes correctly. “First, put your socks, slowly with care, over your toes,” he’d begin. The lesson is that mundane, everyday tasks are opportunities for careful, intentional living.
When we’re stressed, when we’re overwhelmed, and when we don’t know what to do next, tuning in with our senses becomes a reprieve.
What do you believe is your favorite, or most dialed-in, sense?
I was thinking about senses more because of the warming weather, but mainly because of this sensory quiz by author Gretchen Rubin. It’s worth the few minutes to understand your senses and become more in tune with the senses we neglect. While you might disagree with the results (I did), the quiz offers tangible ways to amplify how you perceive the world.
For Sarasota Magazine, I wrote about how drug addiction, financial insecurity, and unaddressed mental health problems are leading to high numbers of children being removed from their parents’ care. Featured are two mothers whose goal is to help parents shift anger and resentment into acceptance, and to educate and support parents who want to turn their lives around and get their children back. Themes: mental health, renewal, depression, and helping others. Here’s the piece.
One thought I’m meditating on:
"The paradox of our time in history is that we have taller buildings, but shorter tempers; wider freeways, but narrower viewpoints; we spend more, but have less; we buy more, but enjoy it less. We have bigger houses and smaller families; more conveniences, but less time; we have more degrees, but less sense; more knowledge, but less judgment; more experts, but more problems; more medicine, but less wellness."
― Dr. Bob Moorehead, The Paradox of Our Time
Photo of the week: Grand Central Terminal
Parting question: What’s the best thing that happened to you this week?
Celebrate your gifts,
Matthew
P.S. — Thank you for reading and trusting me with these words, a privilege I don’t take lightly. If Inner Peace has helped you in some way, please consider forwarding this email to someone you care about.
Another lovely, thoughtful, and thought-provoking piece.
Love the paradox of time quote. Reading every line, you have to think that it's absolutely true for many of us! Thanks Mathew!