What crossing your eyes has to do with gratitude

What crossing your eyes has to do with gratitude.

Cross your eyes.

Go ahead. Do it.

“It’s as plain as the nose on your face,” they say, and if you take a moment to cross your eyes, sure enough, you’ll see that there is a big, dark, shiny thing that lives right between your eyes.

Yep, it’s your nose.

And what’s crazy? It’s there all the time. And, if you’re like most people, we don’t even see it.

One of the gaze points in ashtanga yoga is the nose. As I was practicing (and looking at my nose), it suddenly occurred to me that I had never really noticed my nose before. Even in the practice, I wasn’t really taking it in. And yet it’s there. And not only is it always there, but it’s always visible, unlike, say, the back of your knee. My nose lives daily in my line of sight, but I have gotten so used to it being there, that I don’t even register its presence.

This is akin to the time I came home and found my roommate in the kitchen.

“What do you think of the new plant,” she asked.

“What new plant.”

She stared at me, “The one by the front door. The large bushy one that you have to practically trip over in order to see it. That large plant.”

“Oh.” Huh. “I didn’t see it.”

I’m starting to wonder: what else is always there that I simply don’t see anymore?

The support of friends? The safety of living in Canada? The love of family? Breathing? Being alive? Now?

What have I grown so accustomed to, that – like the nose on my face – I’d only really notice it when it was gone. Or – as in the yoga practice – when I’m encouraged to really look at it for a long time, over and over, until I finally see that its there.

• Pause to cross your eyes.
• Pause to feel your heart.
• Pause for a deep breath.
• Pause to be in the sensations of your miraculous body.
• Pause to be now.
• Pause to acknowledge who or what support you in your life.

Pause to love.