Boxes: A Mindful Exercise

Linda Andron-Ostrow, Executive Director

I would like share with you a wonderful metaphor for how we can all live in the present moment. I like to consider this as an opportunitiy to be aware of the small things we and our children accomplish every day, and letting our sorrows drift away to be held by all of those in the world that we are connected to through the energy that travels through time and space.

As the story goes, a family is given a gold box and a black box by a kind stranger. The gold box was very beautiful and covered in glitter.  The black box was painted matte and had a big hole in the bottom.

They could not figure out what to do with the boxes.  The stranger told them to put all their good memories in the gold box.  Happy times they had together, the challenges they met and overcame,  and the growth that they see day to day.  Into the black box they were told to put all their sorrows, their frustrations and their negative times. The gold box got fuller and fuller, bigger and bigger as they became mindful of all that they had in their lives.  The blackbox never got fuller, it never got bigger. It just remained empty because as soon as they would put in sorrow and it would fall through the bottom and drift away.