Life is like a box of crayons that everyone brings to the table.  A big sheet of brown paper strewn across for everyone to draw on.  What will you draw, what colors do you use?     There will always be someone else’s lines crossing over into ours as lives intersected are touched.  Will you remember?  Will you be conscious of how you touch the lives of others?  A simple look, a word, time, or silence.  Will your picture be vibrant, will there be so many brilliant connections that it will be nearly impossible to know where your drawing ends and others begin?  Or  perhaps the inside is a very detailed picture, with beautiful tendrils reaching out to others – every one of them meaningful.  At times we are all in a dark place for a multitude of reasons, the colors we reach for very muddy and gloomy and the picture overbearing.  There are no wrong ways, no wrong answers, we are all free to choose and to be.  Can you see that in others when you speak to them?  What colors they are drawing with?

There is an absolutely amazing book, The Five People You Meet in Heaven by Mitch Albom.  It is a book that touched me, its messages burned into my thoughts.  There are so many underlying messages.  One key concept is that in heaven, you will meet five people whose lives you touched in different ways.  The most surprising thing, in the story…the five people were those he never expected, never knew how he had touched their life.

Do people know how they touch mine I sometimes wonder?  Always trying to show gratitude, but even the smallest of interactions can make a world of difference.  It makes me wonder sometimes, how am I touching the lives of others?  Do they smile?  Think?  Feel inspired?  Laugh?  or even feel frustration, indifference, serenity, or even anger?  I think sometimes this is part of why I love teaching in SL.  There is the amazing medium where the physical boundaries of RL don’t exist, but there is also the opportunity to touch people I never could outside of this world.  One small way to make a difference, plus the innate joy that I have of sharing in both worlds.  Do those that come to my classes know I watch, always look for ways to make it easier, more enjoyable, strive to ease their struggles anytime I can?  The energy flows both ways, for they touch me too.  Everyone I interact with does, in their own way.

If you have not read this book, it is truly one of the best I’ve read.  Not for it’s excellence in writing, but for the underlying message and how deeply it spoke to me.

On this Monday morning (and I normally detest Monday mornings), I’m filled with complete serenity.  I’m going to share again a video from the last post.  Relax, listen, watch, feel it deeper and on a different level.  Can you feel it?  The opening and embracing of her own name, as her singing changes?  The gratitude she exudes, her family as they surround her?  The love and support?  I feel this, in this amazing world and I am ever so grateful.

I now know my name.

People won’t remember what you say…
They remember how you made them feel

Things I have learned

• teaching three classes in one day is very fulfilling yet very very tiring 🙂
• that I always think I can create more than I can in an amount of time
• I need to tattoo “less is more” on my forehead
• people can be utterly incredible and supportive and I’m beyond grateful
• the energy and support during the RFL event coordinated by SoCo and the Victorian Theatre event by Chrissy was absolutely incredible.  So honored to be part of both of them.
• that even when things don’t evolve as you hoped, it truly will be ok
• to always re-evaluate, re-balance
• slow and steady truly does win the race

Paint your picture –
~ Eva