I was on a roll this week, a subtle heart-felt living roll. Speaking from the heart and acting on it, that’s how I generally try to live most days, well, until I was stopped quite abruptly mid roll by a small girl with a tiny flower.

So what do I mean by the term heart-felt living? To me it means running with the emotion; acknowledging them, the words, or the feeling that’s inside of you at the time. Letting it free, writing it out, speaking the words, acting on it (and sometimes seeing what becomes of it). Most of the time, absolutely nothing becomes of it, but you feel good for having done what was in your heart at the time.

A card sent, an invitation to dinner, a tiny message of thanks and enough honest hugs to squash into a basket, that’s how this week was looking.

I like doing this, I like living like this, and as I get older I feel like it’s an almost missed opportunity if I don’t. There is rarely anything to lose by not acting, and only to gain. A smile, a word, an email, a gesture, a new friend, an open opportunity, a free mind, the possibilities are quite endless, just as the follow on effect from these actions.

So how was a lesson learnt from a small girl wielding a tiny flower?

My girl has always given small bunches of flowers to her friends, both big and small. She’s done this from when she first learnt to walk. Since moving, that day-to-day list of social interactions for her and her posies of flowers have shortened…a lot. I knew that, I knew she missed her people.

So lately, sometimes she would start to give simple items of a drawn picture or a picked flower to people who caught her eye. Someone who had lingered with conversation or a friendly shop keeper, (I also got rather a lot of them.)

This week, an important conversation between one of my other kids stopped me from giving my undivided attention to the flowers being slowly added to in my hands, and repeated requests to give some flowers to the ‘shop seller’. I muttered no, and at the end I unthinkingly upturned the whole pile as we got up and headed to the shops. A tiny gasp was heard and a wash of guilt dripped over me.

With shopping basket full, we stand at the shop counter waiting. She turns to me whispering whether she can give the ‘seller lady’ a flower? In her small hand is holding a tiny perfect flower, one left, from the pile I had unthinkingly upturned earlier. I smile and nod and she gives it to the lady.

Oh thank you sweetie! Oh that’s so kind!…I’ve had such a bad day, and you’ve just completely made it for me! Thank you.

As she places the delicate petals behind her ear, my small girl beams. The shop lady beams and I let another little wash of guilt slide on over.

So what was my lesson learnt?

Heart felt living, definitely not just a solo act that adults take part in. Kids, I think do it instinctively, and then it’s slowly seems to be taken away by us adults (who might even be  unknowingly, trying to bring it back into their lives.)

Now that I’m paying a little more attention, In different ways I can see that it’s just as important to others around me as well.

So here’s to heart-felt living. To more impromptu dinner invitations and stopped conversations on the street. To hastily scribbled tiny notes of thanks, beaming smiles and happily, to more bunches of tiny little flowers to kind hearted people who catch your eye.