It’s always very insightful to sit with a jigsaw puzzle… As I work on putting the pieces together, I am often reminded that one way or another, everything is falling into place.
The puzzle is a beautiful example of life–how we approach the puzzle is how we approach everything…we can learn a lot about ourselves and the nature of our reality by watching our own puzzling process.
The other day I sat down to puzzle while I finished my cup of afternoon tea-–the edge had not been completed so I was working on that. I touched each piece as I quickly sifted for edges. If it was not an edge piece, it went straight into the puzzle box lid, and I did not look twice at it.
Beneath my automatic sifting, I felt anxious and worried. I was thinking that I must be missing the mark with multiple ambitions and dreams…I want certain parts of my life to be more put together. It occurred to me that perhaps this is the case until the end…Perhaps it’s this pulse and angst of seeking the visions in our hearts that keeps us going.
I thought about how long it has taken me to feel the boundaries of my own life. How many cycles spiraling ever up and out. How many seasons of Nature’s unyielding framework–that it took before I “got the picture.” Before I felt held in my experience on this planet, in my own rhythms of living.
The only way I was able to do this was by not paying attention to every single thing. Not clinging to outcomes. And by learning to let things go even when I longed deeply, or writhed uncomfortably at the point I stood.
Then the “puzzling thoughts” start cooing in my mind…
“You are back around on ground zero again. The level of reframing. You must define the edge of your current scope of life, the boundaries in which you will operate for this round of your journey. We seek the frame–so that we feel secure in the channeling of our efforts. So we can trust the process unfolding without fear of energy leaking out in every direction indefinitely.”
As I work, I handle every single piece of the whole puzzle. But I’m only looking for an edge. The rest I set aside; the time to give those pieces my attention has not come.
How often has a particular thing I desired or needed passed through my life but not landed? Until finally I was able to pick it up or use it and appreciate its true value.
If I stop and try to find where a certain piece fits without its surrounding support, it would do me little good.
As we go through our lives—day by day, year by year- we are handling many parts of our own life’s masterpiece.
All these things in our lives are vital aspects of our picture, our purpose, our desires, our human experience. Each part of the experience is necessary and undeniably fitting. Piece by piece, moment by moment, challenge by challenge, the full scope of our life IS revealed.
But we don’t need to have FOMO (fear of missing out) while they sift in and out of our focus. We don’t have to get obsessive about finding a certain piece. The pieces are all there.
Nothing is missing. All we need is within reach every step of the way. So we must never stop reaching. Certain pieces are placed when our puzzle can hold that piece appropriately; when we are ready, the pieces will appear, perfectly timed.
In the meantime, we can work where we are on what is in front of us. We can secure our corners and edges and look to the vision in our heart as the map of our living masterpiece.
Some seasons are simply for setting the edge again, repairing the boundary that will carry us through our days in synchronized alignment with the Whole.
We are each a puzzle piece within the boundaries of something far greater than ourselves.
We aren’t late or unworthy or wrongly positioned.
We are where we are for a reason.
From ground zero again,
Kenzie
PS. What kind of puzzle piece do you imagine yourself being? An edge, a middle, a piece that fell on the floor, a piece full of all your favorite colors, something else? Whatever the answer is—stop for a moment and feel yourself being placed exactly where you belong, supported by those around you AND supporting those around you.
PPS. Thanks for reading. What are your puzzling thoughts?
