Arms Wide Open

At  a social event I coordinated recently one of my daughters friends, a man I had not known long, approached me after watching me greet the guests and commented," you like to live with your arms wide open". 

It was a phrase I had never heard before and I instantly liked it and knew the truth of it.

I do live with my arms wide open in many ways and consciously try to open them more all the time.

I think living with your arms wide open allows the room to embrace all the different people and experiences available to you. It also makes room to live more fully, taking in more of everything including emotion, ideas, beliefs and customs

 Living with your arms wide open is stretching your arms up and out in joy and excitement or pure celebration for the beauty and magic that is around us all the time.

As children we typically start out like this wanting to play with everyone and everything. Explore investigate, make friends, hug. We are open and curious when we are very young. But we learn to limit ourselves in so many ways. We are taught that some things are bad or wrong, we become disciplined, regulated, fearful. We can become judgmental or self conscious, less free and open to everything and everyone around us.

As we grow older it takes awareness and choice to live with open arms. It is not easy to embrace everything and everyone, maybe it is not even possible or desirable  to do so, but in opening just a bit wider we will find new insight,  friendships and joy that we had not know before.

I have not always had my arms wide open, in fact quite the opposite. As a young woman with low self esteem and little confidence I held back, hesitated, fearful of rejection or looking foolish. 

I was reluctant to try things I might not like or that I might not be good at.

I really tried to make friends or speak to others I was convinced they would not be interested.

As a religious person I judged certain behaviors as bad or sinful and held my beliefs to be the right ones, my opinions and teachings made more sense of course.

As a young clueless mother I devoured books on childrearing to find the "right" way to do it and came up with routines and systems that would work best.

I had an insatiable curiosity to learn how to do things "right" as if there were only one way. What I finally discovered was how limiting this was. 

I also discovered that I did not want to live in a straight and narrow world I wanted things to be curvy and wide. I began to see the value and validity in so many things, the richness and depth of diversity of all types.

I was not satisfied with one form of belief and wanted to know about and embrace all ways of being spiritual and holy recognizing that all the information and wonder of the world cannot possible fit into neat little constructs.

I cultivated a taste for all types of performance and could not get my fill of poetry, dance, music and books.

Most importantly, as I became more open and accepting of who I was with less judgment and worry I developed a deep desire to know and care for others. I was comfortable talking to everyone and anyone and made fast friends.

I have found there is a vastness, depth and wonder to all aspects of life, even the parts that are unpleasant. While each aspect, experience and person I embrace has the potential to bring delight, it always adds to me becoming more of who I am.

I cannot say I am open to everything, I most certainly am not, but I do stretch my arms wide a good deal of the time and am thankful I have found them full of beautiful people, experiences ideas and emotion. I challenge myself to learn about things I do not understand, search out something new or interesting, have all types of friends. These are the highest goals of my life: to embrace it all, to learn to accept everything, and to enjoy as much as I can.