In my A to Z of Becoming, I have two verbs for the letter "R" – reflect and relish.
Both reflecting and relishing have a part to play in deepening our experience of life. I think there's a subtle difference in these two verbs which is revealed when we think of time – we reflect on what was. We reflect on what we did, what we thought, what we felt….at a particular time. We also reflect in the here an now, as in reflecting back to someone else what they have just said, but even in this "here and now" reflection is focused on what just happened. Isn't it?
Relish, however, is very firmly focused on the here and now. Even if you decide to relish a memory, your relishing is still happening now – the focus of the experience is the re-living, or re-enjoying, whatever it was as you bring it back into the present.
To relish something involves intensifying the experience you are having, because to really "enjoy, delight in etc" you have to fully focus on it. So, let's think for a moment about some of the qualities associated with relishing.
Presence. To really relish something, someone, or some experience, you have to turn up. You have to "be here now", as Ram Daas said, and as Eckhart Tolle teaches in "The Power of Now". Our minds often wander off into the past or the future, remembering something, worrying about something, planning something. Presence requires us to bring ourselves, and our attention into this moment. If you set out to relish something, that very intention will help you to be present….and being present will increase your relishing!
Awareness. A main theme of this blog is "heroes not zombies". We live a lot on auto-pilot. To relish something we need to become aware of the sensations, feelings and thoughts which are being evoked. We need to be aware, awake, or "mindful". My first encounter with awareness was in the book of the same title by Anthony De Mello (you can get a pdf of that book here). Mindfulness is the word made popular by Jon Kabat-Zinn. I found Dan Siegel, the founder of Interpersonal Neurobiology (IPNB), to be a really good teacher of mindfulness meditation. However you do it, whatever practice you follow, the key is to break the habits of non-awareness.
Open-ness. If you've already made you mind up about something, you're not going to fully appreciate it in the here and now. If you think you've seen all there is to see, or know all there is to know, about something, your mind will have closed up. To really relish something you have to open your mind to the specific, the new and the amazing.
Gratitude. Finally, gratitude is a great partner to relishing. When we approach an experience with gratitude in our hearts, it sets us up to relish it. On the other hand, the practice of relishing something increases the gratitude we feel.
I know we often think of relish in the context of taste and food (I've even used a photograph here of the mint and chives near my front door), and food can be a good place to practice relishing, but if you go back and look at those synonyms for relish, I'm sure you'll find a huge variety of targets for you practice on.
Ask yourself each morning this week when you wake up – what am I going to relish today?
Ask yourself each evening this week – what did I relish today?