Yesterday I heard that a friend of a close friend had a heart attack on New Year’s Day and died. He had apparently complained of what he thought was indigestion, and let’s be honest many of us might over the festive period. He went upstairs to get something, and he didn’t come back. He was in his early 50s and for all intents and purposes lived a fit and healthy life. And then in an instant, he was gone. I didn’t know him, other than briefly meeting him and his wife one day when they were at my friend’s house. But hearing this stunned me.
It’s one of those total wake-up calls. So out of the blue. It reminds us of how much we take life for granted. How we moan about things. How we sweat the small stuff. Hang on to old ways of being and past hurts that we know don’t serve us. And then we hear something like this and it jolts us out of our habitual unconsciousness.
My own mum is having tests at the moment for her heart and hearing this news made me feel even deeper love for her than I already do. And for my dad. And for all the people in my life.
It renewed my commitment to showing up more fully in life through love. Because in the end it really does come down to love. And I don’t want to be left with regret that I could have been more loving, or I could have been kinder. Or that I could have been more generous, or more patient with people.
It’s a working progress. Of course, I am not all those things all of the time. But I will now renew my efforts in trying to be. I believe it’s our inherent nature to be kind, loving and generous and it’s only our fears and our lack of self-love that get in the way of us being that with others.
So, this news has renewed my commitment to be more love. To let go of the things within me that are not of love. Whilst New Year’s resolutions can end up short-lived, this year, hearing this news, I have had a wake-up call.
And the question I will make the effort to continually ask myself in any given moment through 2020 is,
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