"Bliss is everywhere. You just have to unwrap it." *
This is a wonderful comment and I would agree. There is potential bliss in so many moments of our lives if only we knew how to get there, instead of ‘here’. ‘Here’ being somewhere that is less than blissful. One way to get ‘there’ is to use our memories to retrieve old blissful moments that can be enjoyed for themselves and used to create new moments. I talk about this extensively in THE ENCHANTED SELF, APositive Therapy . Sometimes these moments are our own. Sometimes they belong to someone else and we borrow them.
Yesterday I was talking to my mom’s best friend from childhood. My mom, Bernice Becker is the author of FEEL GOOD STORIES. This book is full of great memories, but not the one that Betty shared. She told me about how they would spend the summers as youngsters. There was no money for camp in either family but the two girls had a great time rollerskating and going back and forth to the public library. They lived in Brookline, Massachusetts on tree lined streets filled with small apartment buildings and three family homes. Most apartments had small porches either in the front facing the street or in the back facing an alleyway or yard. It wasn’t heaven but it was pleasant. The weather was hot but not as unbearable as weather can be today and they had freedom, exercise and the next good book to read. Yes, bliss was everywhere those summers. And it was sweet.
How I wish we could all unwrap our bliss everyday! And I wish so much that could be true for my mom who is now in Skilled Nursing and those days of roller skating and even the pleasure of a good novel are so far behind.
*By the way I heard that saying on tv this morning. It goes with an ad for a new Hersey chocolate! I guess a good piece of chocolate is another way back to bliss! I could recreate a blissful moment right now by eating a chocolate. I remember how wonderful chocolate tasted when I was a girl, hungry in girl scout camp and we made Smore’s. Should I? Shouldn’t I? mmm This is a big decision.
Dr. Barbara Becker Holstein, www.enchantedself.com
