Listen to Your World Today

One of my daycare charges is missing this week. He is a little personality that absorbs the world and everything that he sees, hears and feels is reflected in his behaviour. I thought it would be a quiet week. I was wrong.

I take care of a little girl with a very small voice. She loves action, activity and she has honed the art of that ear piercing scream that could shatter a window. She is drawn to those around her that channel her energy and open the door to playing out her style of fun.

The third child that I tend is a little bit of a diva. She knows what she wants and she pursues her end-goals relentlessly. Her voice is loud and clear. If she has been wronged, we know about it. She plays just as happily on her own as she does with her partners-in-daycare.

Mix these personalities up in a bowl and you have My Day.

This week has been a very good eye opener for me. The loudest 'voice' in our daycare crowd is missing, but I still hear him. Because he has been channelling the energy, behaviours, misdemeanour's and actions of the two that he left behind. He amplifies what he sees and projects it repetitively into our day.

As I absorbed this knowledge and recognized the fact that I must look beyond his behaviour to see where (and who) it is stemming from, I couldn't help but wonder just how many of our 'bad days' are when he is channelling my actions and feelings.

A friend dropped by to visit last week. She works in a daycare so we have many daycare-related conversations. But she came over after my daycare family had gone home for the day. But she visited and interacted with each and every one of our pets throughout the course of our visit.

Our sickly Senior Cat literally stopped in mid stride as she called out to him. He approached  her and took up his perch where she could easily love, adore and talk to him. He purred his loud, monster-purr (that we have not heard since he got sick). He stretched, rolled and took in every ounce of love that she had to give him.

Our Junior (Scaredy) Cat approached her without reserve and took what she had to give and moved on. Other than being apprehensive about anything new or different and being skittish to the nth degree, he has few health or self esteem issues. So he accepted her kindness and moved on.

We went outside and our (normally) bouncing, jumping dogs actually listened to me when I told them to stay 'down'. Within moments our Little Dog resumed his position and took over the lawn swing. But what astounded and amazed me was the way our Big Dog (who will sit still for My Son, but quite literally vibrates at times because she is so full of energy) sat motionless and perfectly at the side of My Friend. My Friend and I chatted and our Big Dog sat absolutely still and simply revelled in the light touch of My Friend as she mindlessly massaged the top of our dog's head. I had never seen our Big Dog so absolutely entranced.

My Friend left and I got to thinking about some of her 'shadows' at daycare. The little kids that have a hard time feeling comfortable in a new environment are drawn to her and will follow her everywhere. The calming energy that she projects into the world invites such trust. Small children and animals can feel it and channel it as easily as my little three-year-old boy who reflects the world he lives in.

We all absorb, reflect and internalize the world that we live in. Sometimes we reverberate in that energy, other times we quietly take it all in and it changes our internal make-up. Perhaps the key lies in (first of all) absorbing and taking in 'life'. Internalizing and processing this information is a good second step to take before we outwardly reflect that which we see, feel and hear.

If all we do is absorb and internalize that which happens to us without a release valve of expressing and letting it go, little things become bigger-than-they-are.

If we respond to life's stimuli as a reflex action, without conscious thought of the consequences of our actions we don't grow and become as-much-as-we-can-be.

I want to hone the gift that My Friend has. She is highly sensitized to the world. She sees, hears and feels all. She takes it all in and it comes out in a sense of calmness and peace that invites those around her to trust her implicitly with their fears, inhibitions and vulnerabilities.

I strive to become a little bit like my little daycare charge that has learned at the tender age of two years old, to go after what she wants in the world. She lives out loud and screams at the injustices of life as they happen.

When I react in a knee-jerk fashion to that which happens to me, I am no better than the little boy that I tend that reflects his world without processing it first.

There is much to be learned from those who cross our paths in life. Listen to your internal reactions to the people in your world today. What do you hear?