The Grand and Noble View of You

Saturday, October 23, 2:15 p.m., Lipan Point, 7360 feet off the Grand Canyon.

"It is man's foremost duty to awaken the understanding of the inner Self and to know his own real inner greatness. Once he knows his true worth, he can know the worth of others."
--Swami Muktananda


It's very difficult to take in the grandeur of the canyon if you zoom in too closely and only capture the details. A friend pointed out, that if you put in the foreground as a point of reference, the pictures begin to tell a much more amazing story.


In this same way, I started realizing that we often don't love ourselves because we look too closely in the mirror...taking critical note of every large pore, stubborn chin hair, obtrusive zit or new wrinkle. If we would just stand back, and look at the big picture--we'd see how noble and grand we really are!


This isn't to say that we don't all have things to "work on" about ourselves...but have you ever noticed that a friend never seems less than lovely to you? You'd never dream of looking at your friends as critically or closely as you do yourself!

When I paint a portrait, I often design it very up close and personal. But, I'm looking within, at the client's inner light, beauty and color. So, it happens to come out as your nose, lips, eyes and hair--but that's not really your real essence. And that's what I go for--your inner being, your truth. So why not for myself, too?

As I'm painting, I have to stand back frequently, or I'll miss conveying the whole picture. Plus that's when I catch mistakes...not when I'm up close. Interesting. In life we tend to do just the opposite!


So, I'm standing way, way back...and looking for the great good, the grand and noble view of myself. It may take a little practice and a lot of patience...but what a great lesson to have learned from the Grand Canyon!

Maybe, that's what the Master Christian meant by his two great Commandments: To love God, and to love your neighbor as yourself. If you don't stand back and see the big picture, you'll never really get God in your viewfinder, much less your neighbor, or even yourself!

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An excerpt from one of my favorite books, Attitudes of Gratitude by M. J. Ryan:

"You are amazing original, the one and only you. You think unique thoughts, express yourself in particular ways, and offer yourself to family and friends in ways that only you can. But I bet you aren't even aware of your beauty, your sensitivity, your quirky outlook on the world. In some ways, it's not possible not to take ourselves for granted--the way we are is just natural to us, and therefore it's hard for us to see just how marvelously wonderful we are."

"That's what's so great about friends: they notice what's wonderful and point it out, and suddenly it becomes visible to us too."

"When we're practicing gratitude, it's easy to notice all the things outside of ourselves we are grateful for--love and friendship and food and laughter--and forget to shine the light of appreciation on ourselves. But we all have splendid qualities, and if we learn to appreciate ourselves, our sense of gratefulness for our own beings will be magnified and our tendency to notice all our flaws and failings will diminish."

"Giving thanks for all our wonderful qualities is one of the ways we learn truly to love ourselves. From that self-love, we can then feel worthy of love from others and have strong, healthy relationships. Because we feel worthy, we can love without being overly demanding, clinging, or rejecting."

"Today, try writing a note of thanks to yourself."

Gratitude Keeps Us Current

"Newborn" 5x8" acrylic by S'zanne Reynolds


"That it will never come again is what makes life so sweet."
--Emily Dickinson

A story from "Attitudes of Gratitude" by M.J. Ryan

"Last night I watched my daughter Ana, whom we recently adopted from China, lie on the bed in an ecstatic trance of bottle-sucking. Her eyes closed, her rosebud mouth pursed, her exquisitely long fingers curled around the plastic bottle, she gave herself over to the experience. She wasn't obsessing on past wounds, although perhaps she had a right to. Neglected for over a year, when we got her she had second-degree burns on her buttocks from lying in urine. Nor was she worrying about where future bottles might come from, although she had a right to do that also. Abandoned on Christmas evening on a cold street until someone heard her newborn cries, she had been fed only watered-down milk and seemed to be starving the first few weeks we fed her.

Rather, she was so focused on appreciating the warm milk as it went down her throat that everything else, past and future, simply disappeared. As I looked at her, I realized that this total and complete absorption in the present moment is available to us all when we choose to let gratitude wash over us uninhibitedly.

But many of us have been taught not to give ourselves over so fully to something or someone. As a child, I believed that you couldn't let yourself become totally immersed in an experience, because something bad might be happening as your attention is diverted. My parents used to say that as a child they never saw me asleep; I always had one eye open, alert to disaster.

But if Ana, who has suffered so much in her very short life, can giver herself over to the joy of completely appreciating her bottle, can't i allow myself in this moment to fully appreciate the sweet peas on my desk, the wonder of being able to think and read and write?

As I allow myself to open to the fullness of gratitude, the past and future fade away and I become more alive in the present moment. That's because gratitude is, for the most part, about the here and now. While we can be thankful for past blessings and hope for future ones, when we experience a sense of gratefulness, we are usually contemplating some present circumstance. We are brought up to date with ourselves. Our focus moves away from all that we or others did or failed to do in the past, or what we hope for or worry about in the future, and we find ourselves placed squarely in this precious moment, this experience that will never happen again.