My daughter hasn’t celebrated as many Purim holidays as I have so when we were gifted with some chocolate-covered Hamantaschen, her reaction, which initially surprised me, was quite appropriate.
Instead of taking a bite out of it, she began to pick away at the chocolate covering with her finger nails, then later a fork which her astute and responsible mama gave to her. No need to get all that chocolate in her finger nails, plus the fork proved to be far more effective.
My 4 yo daughter genuinely didn’t know what she was going to find inside. She hasn’t seen thousands of hamantaschen over the years like I have. As she dug deeper into the chocolate coating, she said there was a treasure inside. She even likened it to her L.O.L. Surprise toys.
Little did she know that the magic was not what was inside the chocolate covering, but her authentic curiosity and presence every step of the way, at every action of chipping away with her fork.
Much like the idea of turning a drawing upside down to subdue our tendencies to draw what we expect rather than the exact lines and angles we see (See Drawing on the Right Side of the Brain by Betty Edwards), my daughter was seeing exactly what she was seeing and nothing else, her perception wasn’t clouded by expectations or assumptions and she was genuinely entranced by her chocolate-covered Hamantaschen exploration.
It was a magnificent model of mindfulness and the enriching impact of being present.
Mindful Nuggets 