“I heard a story about three bowls.

The first bowl is inverted, upside down, so that nothing can go into it. Anything poured into this bowl spills off.

The second bowl is right side up, but stained and cracked and filled with debris. Anything put into this bowl gets polluted by the residue or leaks out through the cracks.

The third bowl is clean. Without cracks or holes, this bowl represents a state of mind ready to receive and hold whatever is poured into it.

Sometimes I am that first bowl, so busy being “productive” that I don’t notice when the very thing I want presents itself.

Sometimes I am the second bowl, with such a fierce judging voice that focuses on what’s not working that I’m unable to see or appreciate all the things that are going well.

And sometimes, wonderful times, I am the third bowl, able to be present and absorbed in what I am doing, whatever it is.”

Credit: every day sacred, a woman’s journey home.

By Sue Bender