We're going to explore the concept of foraging for golden moments.
So, what does foraging mean?
Foraging is when we go out in search of the food and nourishment that nature so freely and abundantly offers us.
I took a walk the other day and I noticed that blackberries were growing wild right outside my house. I hadn't noticed them before and this led me to think about how we might begin to forage for those things that nourish us and bring us tiny moments of joy.
Often, just like the blackberries growing in my path that I almost walked right past, these golden moments can be so small, happening right underneath our noses, that we could almost miss them.
If we go out foraging for berries and nuts, we wake up to our environment and our surroundings. We slow down and really open our eyes to what is happening all around us. The landscape around us suddenly becomes more vibrant simply because we are noticing it.
Foraging was a huge part of life for our ancestors, and I wonder if the act of foraging made them more mindful, with an ability to seek and find those simple moments of joy that we, in this fast-paced, 24/7 world, might miss because we are moving too fast.
So how can we begin
to forage for golden moments
in our own life?
Whilst life is a journey and we are always growing and evolving, and it is necessary to reflect on the past in order to better forge our path ahead, life only ever happens now - so this is where we must begin to look for these golden moments. Whenever I dwell too much in the past - whether in happy memories or sad ones, regrets or wistful thinking - or whenever I dwell too much in the future - whether in worries and fears or daydreams - I rob the present moment of its power and beauty because I fail to notice it and to be here with it. The present moment is the exact point of our embodied experience, and only the present moment is guaranteed to us and certain. All we ever truly have is Now and our character.
Everything else is either past and written,
or still to come -
and therefore completely unwritten.
When we wake up in the moment, we suddenly see our life with new and fresh eyes, untarnished by past or future. What is there for us to see and hear and smell and taste and touch now? Describe your current experience as if you were writing the story of your life in golden moments. Sometimes a simple practice to bring yourself into the now is to imagine that you are captioning it as if this moment was a picture in a storybook. How might you caption this moment? My caption might be, for example, 'Woman holds a mug of tea in her hands and gazes out of the window as she writes about foraging for golden moments'. So often, we only appreciate the moments of our lives when they have passed. But how much more magnificent would it be if we were able to appreciate those moments in the moment? How much more at ease might we feel if we simply accepted the present moment for what it is and trained ourselves to see the silver linings and the tiny things to be grateful for? That's not to say that we shouldn't feel our feelings or strive for better or seek to change the things that must be changed. We absolutely should. Toxic positivity is not the goal here. But when we become fully awakened in the moment, we begin to see things more clearly and can start to take positive action now. What might our life be like if we saw every moment as an opportunity to reflect, to seek out lessons, and to celebrate? Even if the present moment doesn't feel great, we can celebrate ourselves and our strengths and our character.
We can celebrate our potential
to rewrite our story,
starting now.
Every moment is filled with the potential for golden moments, and offers us the opportunity to tell a new story.
So, what story would you tell, and what golden moments might you forage in this moment, right here, right now?