Want More Grace?
It’s tempting to imagine grace as a rare event, a bolt from the blue, or a miracle. Well, to me, it is a miracle, but what I’ve found is that assuming it needs to be a rare occasion, or that it’s necessarily accompanied by the “bolt from the blue” feeling keeps grace at arm’s length.
Grace can be a result of simply seeing something new in a situation you thought you knew all about. In other words, it’s having fresh thinking about what might have previously felt like something old and stale.
The Relief of Fresh Thinking
The relief we experience when fresh thinking sweeps away and replaces stale thinking, even when it’s stale thinking about something not particularly meaningful, is like putting down a heavy load you didn’t need to be carrying in the first place.
There’s always a sense of relief that accompanies grace, and along with it, a sense that the world is brand new. At that moment, when everything is made new, so are we, and our experience of ourselves and of the world shifts.
Grace isn’t served up to us on an on-demand basis. More often than not, it strikes when we’re not expecting it. There are several things that can help us be more prone to being visited by grace, and they’re alarmingly simple. An open heart, and an open mind both help.
Grace and Your Mind
Grace is easily obscured or crowded out by a mind that’s all revved up. It may pay us a visit, but we won’t be able to sense it if we’re too caught up in our own thinking. Grace comes more easily to us, and we sense its presence when our minds are quiet, which is the default state they were designed to return to when we leave them alone, even for a short time.
Grace can also be crowded out by the desire to be visited by grace. In other words, our desire for grace, our desperation to find it, or have it find us, minimizes our chance of finding it. You don’t find grace when you look for it. Grace finds you when you’re ready for it.
I’ve noticed that when I calmly acknowledge and accept whatever state of mind I happen to be in at any particular moment, even the shitty ones, I’ve set myself up to be at my best. That’s when grace is most likely to visit me.
In other words, grace visits in the times when I’m not resisting the experience I’m having at that moment, whatever that experience may be. That’s when I have access to the best parts of myself. That’s when I’m able to think most clearly, make the best decisions, and have access to fresh ideas and perspectives.
Want More Grace?
Want more grace in your life? A good place to start would be to notice what experiences you resist. It can take a little while to see that resistance. It’s not that there’s a lack of it in the human experience, it’s more that we resist so many things so much of the time that resistance hides in plain sight.
Noticing resistance doesn’t have to involve giving yourself grief because you’re resisting. Noticing always does the heavy lifting. The simple act of noticing resistance is the beginning of the end for that resistance. Noticing clears the landing pad for grace to visit. Just notice, that’s all. Lots to notice, nothing to fix.
If you like this article, you may like “What’s Sacred in Your World”.
