“Look at the big picture,” has been a phrase I have heard many times. It is easy to get lost in the minutiae of life and lose our perspective of what is most important for us. Will what ishappening in our life right now matter say three years from now or even one month from now? Remember we reside on a ball of dirt that is spinning at 1000 miles per hour in the middle of nowhere and rotating at 67,000 miles per hour that is never in the same place twice and if it were to stop spinning for one second, we would fly off at 1000 miles per hour. This ball of dirtupon which we reside is circling just one star out of least one trillion stars. From this perspective how important is the kind of clothes we wear, or if someone likes us, or if we say something embarrassing or do something that only a knucklehead would do (my high school football coach called me this so much I thought it was my middle name), or not get that job promotion, or make that grade, or not get invited to that social event, or someone in acar in front of us on a busy highway driving 20 miles under the speed limit, or our child striking out in a baseball game. Those things may hold some value for us but maybe not so much whencompared to the big picture of life.
Here are a couple of suggestions that might help with perspective. Try to slow down and take a deep breath. Breathingis a most beautiful thing. Without it (well you know what thatdoes). That one breath brings oxygen into our lungs and diffuses into our blood and is taken into our heart which pumps it into our cells and at the same time the carbon dioxide waste in the cells of our body diffuses into the blood and then diffuses from the blood into the lungs and is expelled as we breathe out. When we slow and deepen our breathing our body produces certain hormones and chemicals that heal and calm our body and mind.
Another suggestion is to let go. Try not to get lost in emotional deregulation. Typically, some of the most hurtful things we may have said and/or done were committed in unexamined emotional responses. When a strong negative emotion such as anger or hurtbites, pause for a moment before responding. During the pause give it a thought, see what is underneath the emotion, and then let it go. Often, our strong emotional reactions have more to teach us about ourselves than it has to do with the other person.
Life on this journey is a beautiful opportunity especially when we can put it into perspective, when we can see the big picture. It would be nice if we could always remain aware of the broader perspective, but that is far from my experience. But the times we do, I believe those moments become almost, if not totally, spiritual and in my opinion that is the big picture.
