"Being Open"

I should be "blogging" about the third agreement from the book, The Four Agreements, but I am going to take advantage of some other thoughts I'm having.  Tomorrow I"ll tackle the 3rd agreement.

  

I have been thinking, for the past few days, alot about "being open".  I asked Heavenly Father the other day what I needed to learn right now in  my life, and that's what came to me.  I'd like to think I'm an "open" person; at least I've always thought I was.  I have been fairly outgoing most of my life (my mother would say that I was MORE than "fairly" outgoing   because when I was as a little girl, I would disappear from our home to a neighbor's house and sometimes be in their house without even knocking!LOL) so I thought it was interesting that I'm needing to work on being more open.

  

When I think about being open, I think about more than just me being open with others; I also think of being open to receive from others as well as being open to new experiences and opportunities coming my way.  If you think about it, it takes courage to be open because when you are open with others, you are putting your whole self "out there" and it can feel somewhat scary.  Starting this blog must have been my first step in putting myself "out there", and I wasn't even consciously aware that it was something I needed to do.

   

Being open to receive, for some people, can be a difficult task; I think it would be for me.  I am fairly independent and tend to think I can do it all myself, but the truth is that someday I may not be able to do it all.   I haven't thought much about that until today. 

   

Today I went and sat with an older lady(the age of my mother) who has had alot of health challenges the past few years.  She can no longer be left home alone and her caregivers needed to run some errands.  I am not a nurse and was clear at the beginning that I could "sit" with her but am not qualified and don't feel capable of taking care of any of her physical needs.  I really felt like I needed to do this; to go sit with her but not really knowing what it would be like; yes, I was a little nervous; however,  I prayed this morning for help and knew that it would be okay.   It was an "eye-opener" and a few times I wasn't sure I would be able to help her; she suffers from anxiety and I felt so badly for her because I don't think she believed me when I told her that I really believed (even though she was frustrated) "in the end" that everything would be okay.  I guess the point of this is that she was totally open; she wasn't hiding any of her feelings and was totally relying on me while I was there and is constantly relying on others to help her.   I am so grateful that I am not in that situation, but if it came to me I would hope I could remember to be grateful for my life and remember that everything would somehow be okay.

    

I am feeling a desire for new things to come into my life right now; I am feeling like I am heading in the right direction and if I am to "receive" new experiences and opportunities then I do need to be open to it all.  I believe that we all have different areas in our lives to work on, but that at some point, if we want to feel joy "fully", that being open will be one of them.