Restoration Reflections On Gray Days: Join My 365-Day Peaceful Photo Challenge
DAY 305. Living with irrevocable differences and curating peace through contemplative photography.
July 3, 2025
“Breathing in, I see myself as still water. Breathing out, I reflect things as they are.” ~ Thich Nhat Hanh in Touching Peace: Practicing the Art of Mindful Living
How do you see yourself, not in the mirror but on the inside of your mind and heart?
Everyone I know has suffered or is experiencing trauma of some kind.
We cannot live on this earth without difficulties, and though struggle, insufficiency, pain, illness, and trauma experiences vary along the continuum for all of us, we must engage in the difficult-at-first work of making peace with what befalls us.
Refusing to accept irrevocable outcomes traps us in a constant battle state with life, fostering grief and resentment, which persecutes us and harms those around us.
At Gerritsen Creek, the still water reflects the marsh vegetation and sky with clarity, even on this gray morning.
We can do the same, if we choose to.
Like nature, we can hold space for the darkness of grief and anger as temporary storms, not permanent obstructions to living. Like nature, we decide what to reflect on and when and how to settle.
People ask me about my car accident from ten years ago that still impacts my body today, and they automatically assume I received compensation for my injuries. They nearly faint when they learn I did not. My attorney faced personal trauma, which led to unrecoverable addictions and the decline of his law practice. They rarely understand my peace with the unchangeable outcomes.
It took time, of course, and a conscious, sometimes exhausting, mental practice of reframing and reorientation to cultivate that peace and clear reflection, full of grace, forgiveness, release, acceptance, and gratitude.
When we choose calmness and stillness, we can observe all that we experience exactly as it is, without distortions. Of course, human nature may need to pass through anger, disappointment, and grief first, but these are stages, not destinations.
Choosing to remain trapped in these passages means living with distorted perceptions that prolong our suffering.
What will you choose to see and reflect during your darkest days?