Question of the Day: Who Did You Hug Today?

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It is almost 5:00 p.m. and I have not come across one person who I would not have to chase them down for a hug!

That is one of the differences with living in Jamaica and living in Canada – people in the latter country are not generally hug-friendly.

Later this evening, I am supposed to be meeting a friend for a quick bite so my thought was I would get one hug in for the day then. That, however, would not be until late evening, well beyond the time that this blog is usually posted.

“If only my daughter would have come by with Kitten instead of the video call earlier on Tango,” I mournfully thought.

Eyes glued to my computer screen as I worked on performance target for my team, I heard a familiar voice saying, “Hello, hello, anybody here?” It was the evening office cleaner but why would she be asking that? She knows at least three or more of us would be here at this time of the evening.

Then I heard the pitter-patter of tiny feet. I swivelled in my chair to see one of the most beautiful child ever! It was the cleaner’s grand-baby and she was rushing to one of my staff to give her a hug!!!

Hardly able to contain myself, I yelped, “Come here sweetheart!” Without missing a step or a beat, this angel rushed over to me and threw her arms around my neck and yes, gave me the tightest hug a three year old can!

Of course as soon as she jumped on my lap, I asked her grandmother whether I could take a picture. So here is my “hug” of the day so far.

Did you hug anyone today? Who was it? Share with us here or on our Facebook page and be sure to visit us thee for tomorrow’s question of the day.

Namaste.

Little Angels Opening Doors

Audio Blog Transcript - Listen Here

When a door closes in your face or behind your back, what do you do?

Ralph Waldo Emerson suggests: “Be an opener of doors.”  Are you willing to do that or just leave them closed and look for a window? Better yet, do you wait for one to open?

Searching for an answer to these questions, I turned to a few writers, thought leaders and philosophers for guidance or at least their opinions.

Mehmet Murat Ildan, Turkish playwright and novelist says, “Life is a house with millions of doors. Here is a good strategy of life: Open the doors, open as much as you can, open as much as possible, open the doors!” 

Well, that is all well and good if confronted with doors that are closed that you want to get through but what about the ones you hoped would not close?

Attributed to both Alexander Graham Bell and Hellen Keller, I found this quote quite true about closed doors: “When one door closes, another door opens, but we so often look so long and so regretfully upon the closed door, that we do not see the ones which open for us.”

Over my 40+ years, so many doors have been closed to me, in my face or behind me. I have kicked against some, begging and pleading with the occupant to let me back in. When that did not work, I found every excuse why it was a shitty room in the first place and I was glad to be out of it.

Many a times, I was most uncomfortable in those rooms but it was comfortable. I remember when my partner of 16 years was walking out; a large part of the explanation was our relationship had become a comfort, a habit that needed to be broken. I was shattered to say the least when that door was not only closed to me but barred with steel, never to re-open.

Yet, it was my greatest and best lesson. It was also my first true opportunity to be freely Me.

Remez Sasson puts it this way:

“If we could only move our sight and attention away from the closed door, we might be surprised to discover new, open doors. It might not be so easy to move our eyes elsewhere, due to attachment to the old and familiar, and fear of the new and the unknown.”

Since that experience almost eight years ago, closing doors no longer scare me. In fact, I welcome them.  Do I hurt at times? Of course I do. The closing door to my less than a month old granddaughter has been one of the hardest doors for me. However, when I consider the price that I have paid for my freedom for 40+ years now, I stand back and pray that it might stay even slightly ajar but if it does not, then there is nothing I can do.

Then there is the magic of the Universe. As I take a stand for my freedom and my voice, my Kitten is being kept from me. The Universe, however, always colluded to bring to you what you need. First, It brought me an emergency/temporary place to stay as I, for a peaceful life, bowed to my daughter’s boyfriend’s demand to leave their apartment (or serfdom might be a better word). Next, It brought the most unexpected, delightful and delicious expression of Love.

One of my DOS Sistah offered me a place in her home. I arrived there Saturday afternoon to be greeted by her six year old daughter who I have not seen since she was two. Baby girl rushed to me like a long lost friend, threw herself on me and wrapped her arms around me and declared “I like you so much!”

I have no idea how the floodgate did not open! This morning, three days after my arrival, baby girl heard my voice in the kitchen and she charged in and again enveloped me in her loving arms (well my legs) this time declaring, “I love you!”

Struggling to keep it together,  missing my granddaughter but ever so grateful for this little angel reminding me that there is good in me even as I stand my ground that I am a free woman.

A major door is closing and my heart is bleeding but a window is being flung open by a six year old.  Life does not get better than that!

Visit our Facebookpage and share you open and closed doors stories with us!

Namaste. 

Angel At The Prison Door

Janice Chang

“Why do you stay in prison when the door is so wide open? Move outside the tangle of fear-thinking.” Rumi 

It was crunch-time and stomachs were churning.  The lunch-delivery menu options were offered to the three staffers and two consultants.  One of these new consultant-colleagues, KK, selected the “oxtail and beans” – my all-time favorite meal. Like a beam of light from another realm, I knew then and there that he was “good people.” We became instant friends.

“What draws friends together does not conform to laws of nature...
A hand shifts our birdcages around.
Some are brought closer. Some move apart." Rumi

At that time, my marriage was disintegrating in spectacular blow-out fashion. Concurrently, my spiritual life was burgeoning upward from the “low-level spirituality” to which I had accustomed myself. There was an almost unquenchable thirst for God.  

Image: whirlingdervishes.org

KK gave me a book of Rumi poems, the Sufi mystic poet and I were entranced.  Rumi’s poems gave voice to my new spirituality, my new thirst and my new feelings about God, despite the fact that my path was Christian and Rumi’s was Islamic.  “Lovers” is what Rumi called those who have these life-enhancing yearnings for spiritual matters. 

Work was increasingly stress-filled and negative.  I prayed for insight into why I was in that place. The Inner Voice answered and stunned me: “For Judy” – my new (then) but now life-long friend.  

I was there for her. 

The reason only became apparent many years later as our friendship flourished.  It was delayed as tragedy struck. My father died suddenly.  I was devastated and had never before felt such emotional pain.  Facing our mortality with the death of a loved one, we recognize that life is too short to be unhappy. So I resigned from the job and the inexorable death of my marriage progressed.  

It was then I decided to leave my children in the care of their father upon our separation and relocated to another Caribbean island.  I was dying inside. I managed to hold it together on my new job, pushing myself through the days but my nights alone were hard.  Then my former colleague (my oxtail-loving friend, KK) took the lead and became my strength and sustenance when he told me that he “had my back."

Image: thisgirlcanhelpit.com

In many religions, angels are depicted as benevolent “celestial” beings who act as intermediaries between Heaven and Earth, or as guardian spirits or a guiding influence.  Other roles of angels include protecting and guiding human beings, and carrying out God's tasks.

How did he know to call at that particular moment when the tears were overwhelming me and my heart was breaking into pieces?  How would he know that his affirmations of my worth as a person meant so much to my battered self-esteem? How could his seemingly simple questions lead me to explore the deeper meaning of my situation?  Statements and questions like:

• "Don’t feel too bad about feeling bad – embrace your mood whatever it is” and “Use your journal as signposts to reflect what is going on in your soul."

• Don’t let anyone take your dreams away.  They may not unfold as envisioned, but when you stop dreaming, your soul begins to die and it’s a slow excruciating death”

• “If you feel separated from God, then who moved?”

Then almost a year later, I read an article by a Jewish Rabbi Marc Gellman, based on a Genesis 37:15 question “What are you seeking?” He interpreted the question as “what are you looking for in life," and showed how the man who asked that question and who re-directed Joseph had played a pivotal role in history.  

With that question, Joseph located his brothers, setting off a course of events that saw him being sold into slavery, later elevated to working for the king of Egypt and culminating in him saving the Israelites during the great famine.  If this “man” had not been there at that time, Joseph would not have found his brothers and would have returned home. The history would have been so different.

Rabbi Gellman concluded that this was not just a man but an “angel” who provided direction, a messenger who delivered a much-needed message and, when the job was done, the cameo appearance in a life ended. 

That was what my oxtail-loving friend KK was and is to me, “my angel," when direction was needed. KK’s presence in my life was not by chance. He guided me to my healing; he was at my prison door, he showed me the way to the pasture and my calling. It was now my turn to be there for someone else - "For Judy."

“Lovers don’t finally meet somewhere. They’re in each other all along." Rumi

Have you met an angel, someone who directed you to a point in your destiny? When did you recognize who you had encountered? Did you exit your prison door? Share your story with us by posting a comment here or on our Facebook page. You can also follow us on Twitter.

Be blessed and remember to "show hospitality to strangers as you might be entertaining angels."

Janice Chang is a medical doctor and lives in Michigan with her husband.