The Los Angeles Province Fall DESIGNS magazine will be in the mail soon! The theme this season is “The Power of the Present Moment.”
Many of our sisters and associates sent in beautiful reflections of their experience with how to get into the present moment. We were not able to fit all these pearls of wisdom in the magazine, so we are highlighting them here.
This one is from Director of Associates, Denise Ginty:
Last year the Associate Visioning Team hosted a retreat with Terry Hershey for Associates and Sisters. Terry always has a positive message and those who attended were able to discover the power of the present moment.
During the retreat Terry gave us a task; we were to go outside, choose a destination on the retreat grounds two to five minutes away, then walk to that place as quickly as possible, thinking only about the destination. When we arrived at the destination, we were to pause for at least two or three minutes and just breathe. Next we were to return using the exact same route, only this time we were to take at least twenty minutes to return.
Upon returning to the retreat space Terry asked us to share what we had missed the first time, what did we smell or notice? It was a powerful exercise to understand what we miss in hurried lives; how much we miss when we’re not present to the world around us. The biggest take away from the exercise was how the slow walk back gave people a sense of calm, a feeling of peace.
The point was that our distractions hold us back from experiencing a life that is filled with wonder, awe, peace; a life filled with grace, passion and knowledge that we are connected to something bigger than ourselves. That is the power of the present moment, it is always there for us to discover.
~Denise Ginty, Director of Associates
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