The Shape of Your Life

The first time I read Gift from the Sea by Anne Morrow Lindbergh, I didn't quite get it. Pretty writing, but I was too busy having babies and not having enough money to be moved by musings on seashells. A decade later, I read it again. I understood the deep thoughts, but her experiences were in no way analogous to anything I could experience. I mean, this wife and mother is able to vacation alone at the beach? Working overtime in a gray business world and fielding demands of family/home left me no energy to even dream about a sabbatical. I was stuck--with more important things to read.

I read the book a third time a few years ago. Somehow I felt I should try again.


Ohhhhhhh..... now I get it. This is a day in my life. What will I do with it?


Wandering the sands of a Florida beach recently, I was able to find quiet, feel blessed....gifted. And I felt very small, in a good way. Part of a network of life and habitat so vast, that even a busy modern suburban woman like myself could find herself almost alone on an unspoiled span of shoreline, no boat in sight, only two pelicans and a hundred million seashells all around.

I recalled an excerpt from the book, and a recent past when I couldn't even bear to examine the question Lindbergh posed here:

But his shell – it is simple; it is bare, it is beautiful... Its shape, swelling like a pear in the center, winds in a gentle spiral to the pointed apex....Each whorl, each faint knob, each criss-cross vein in its egg-shell texture, is as clearly defined as on the day of creation.

My shell is not like this, I think. How untidy it has become! Blurred with moss, knobby with barnacles, its shape is hardly recognizable any more. Sure, it had a shape once. It has a shape still in my mind. What is the shape of my life?

For much of my adult life, I was shaping some other life than the one I really wanted to be living. So many of us know better, but we still lose sight of true priorities and make unauthentic choices. When we take an honest look at the shape of our lives, many of us feel unsatisfied. Are you ready to re-shape? Re-consider?

I was. I wanted to intentionally shape a life I could comfortably, truly, happily live in each day--and not wait for someday. I wanted to be well-shaped, in body, mind, heart and spirit. I found gaps between what I was doing and what I was wanting. Some of them were big, some small...but the more I closed the gaps, the clearer I saw the shape of my life. And I'm still working on that shape, with pleasure.

What is the shape of your life?

When I ask this question, I don't mean what is the shape of your thighs, the shape of your pantry, the shape of your party plans, or even the shape of your finances. I mean, how well are you living? I know for sure that answer is up to each of us, regardless of circumstance of life or fate. I have to tell you: you shape your life.

You shape it in as many ways as there are seashells on the beach. The size, scope, inspiration for, relevance of, purpose... you have choices, and those choices are a gift from the universe. Accept them. They aren't complex!

You can choose to Eat Well. Move Well. Play Well. Rest Well. Learn Well. Grow Well.

These ideas will guide this, our shared "Wellness Lifestyle", weekly. Please visit each week and share this page with as many others as you can. Please comment and share your thoughts. The better we all feel and the more we enjoy what we choose for our lives, the happier and more peaceful this world will be. You'll see. I promise.

Anais Nin said: "We don't see things as they are--we see them as we are."

Start Well: Right now, close your eyes and take a deep inhale through your nose. As you exhale, blow away tensions and negative thoughts, especially about yourself. Stand up. Roll your shoulders, neck and stretch your arms and back. Smile. Why not? It's your choice. You are shaping this moment in your life. So, relax a bit. Get some air in. Step outside if you can. Own this moment, it's yours. Nod with me. We are starting well.