Restoring and Reviving
Easter Sunday is just around the corner. Growing up in a Catholic family, this particular Holy Day was considered a cornerstone of the Catholic faith. It is a celebration of the resurrection of Jesus Christ.
My mother was a fervent Catholic and truly walked her talk. My father, in a quiet moment when I asked him if he was as much a believer as mom, confessed that he participated because he liked to ‘hedge his bet’ just in case it was true.
Back in the day, I confess that I was more about the dress, patent leather shoes, lace socks (I could have passed on the hat), and the secret delight that there was a traditional song that included both my name and my brother Tom’s and had to do with colored eggs, chocolate bunnies and an Easter Parade.
In honor of the sacred religious traditions, the pagan traditions that were typically a celebration of fertility and the Easter bunny that was a result of a folkloric tradition that German settlers brought to America in the 1700s as a tribute to the ability to procreate, I’ve decided to bring a generic focus to this article that hopefully will spark new thoughts about how we can use this special time to personalize and deepen our relationship with ourselves.
A simple definition of resurrection is the act of bringing something that has disappeared or ended back into use or existence. Related words include restoring and reviving, resuscitation, bouncing back, a facelift, modernization, moving with the times, rejuvenate, revamp, revitalize, revive and rise. The Cambridge Dictionary proposes the idiom to ‘ lick your wounds,’ to spend time getting back your strength or happiness after a defeat or bad experience.
For our purposes, these are great words to help identify which ones might serve as a positive nudge in the direction of embracing a new level of thriving and leaving behind an outdated attitude that may be keeping you in a state of stagnation.
Here are some antonyms to help spark new beginnings. Clean slate, fresh start, clean sweep, clear conscience, clean hands, square one and rebirth.
Let’s use these few moments we have together as a touchstone to deepen awareness of your current state of mind. Choose a few of the words that open your level of curiosity about what it is about you that could use an easy nudge in a kinder direction. As you savor those words, what experiences do you imagine would come to you if you fully embraced them? Is there another word that better encompasses the experience you are longing for?
Have you been waiting for the perfect moment to initiate new levels of personal and professional mastery? Are you unconsciously expecting that transformation will come visiting without a specific invitation directly from you?
Do you hold the belief that initiating new levels of personal satisfaction will take a lot of hard work to get you back on the track to perfection that you secretly expect?
This has been an unusual winter season. The birds are happily chirping as our gardens bloom. Spring is here, and the sun seems to cast a softer and gentler light as an apology for her lack of consistency. This seems to be the perfect time to initiate a new expansion of the self-loving kind.
No matter what challenges you currently face, new levels of deepening, softening, opening to and embracing your ability to restore and revive your happiness quotient are within your reach.
This season that is held as holy invites us all to adopt a fresh start and align with the natural rejuvenation that arrives with the blossoming of spring.
Susan is a local writer and author of Beyond Intellect: Journey into the Wisdom of Your Intuitive Mind. susanvelasquez.com.
