spring cleaning

When Wendy leaves Neverland, Peter Pan promises to come back for her when it's spring cleaning time. When he does come back, she is all grown up, and too old to fly. Year after year, watching the Mary Martin movie, my heart would break when Wendy cried, "Oh how I wish I could go with you," and replied, "but you can't -- you're just too old."

As long as we are in our beginner's mind, we are never to old for spring cleaning. And I mean of the spiritual kind! Our minds - our feelings about ourselves - our idea of "me," is nothing more than a collection of feelings and memories about the experiences we've had and how we've reacted to them. What better time than spring to throw out those that don't serve us, or think of them differently so that they do?

An example from my life: In primary school, I always felt excluded from the group of girls I most wanted to be friends with. There were two girls in particular who wouldn't let me in. I took this experience to mean that I was the outsider -- the wannabe. But looking back on it, this experience also gave me a big sensitivity for other people who might feel left out. I have always been one to befriend someone who seems friendless, include someone who is lingering on the outside, and try to make someone who is down feel good about who they are. So was my experience in grade school bad for me or good for me? Most of us are not born with perfect compassion, empathy, kindness, benevolence. I know I wasn't! So we need teachers along the way. And those teachers don't always come in the form of empowering self-help books. Sometimes they come in the form of people who seemingly make us suffer.

Spring (and at least today it's sunny, not snowing!) is a good time to think about experiences in our lives that we labeled as negatives, and reflect on whether there was a positive that flowed from them. We can see people in our past as teachers, not villains. We can never be objective about how we view our selves and our past. So why not pick the view that serves us most? And then, we will never be too old to soar.