On gratitude

Full disclosure: last week I experienced a spiritual relapse. I hit rock bottom. I won't  labour over all the torturous details, suffice  to say it was awful. By now I have become accustomed to  this drill and  so, begrudgingly, I knew exactly what I had to do.  Knowing is one thing though. What did I actually do? I went to the fridge to look for a tiny easter egg  which I vaguely remembered had fallen somewhere behind the shelves about two months ago. There was no chocolate ANYWHERE,  and I  was so very desperate. So I probably spent 15 minutes  doing that (I found it!). But THEN what did I  do? I bathed in my pain and  let it wash over me until, eventually, there was nothing  left for it but to pack  its little knapsack of sorrow and move on. It was painful but necessary.

This post, however,  is not an exercise in ego. It's about gratitude. My relapse nevertheless serves as an important reminder that one cannot attempt to deny or discount any negative feelings  in an effort to remedy  pain. The condensed version of my three step program: 1. Shit happens 2. Sit with (sh) it fully 3. Practice gratitude to realign.  Wham bam thank you Sham.

Once you have allowed the space for your emotions, you will find that they dissipate or transmute into something manageable. Either way, you are free to move onto step 3 - practising gratitude! Expressing gratitude, both verbally or in written form, is such a powerful spiritual practice. Authentic appreciation of yourself and everything around you leads to a serious recaliberation of energy and helps you to align with your most powerful and true self. Simply put, it just feels better.

Finding identity through stuff

Dear friends, today I cordially invite you to join me as I  explore the topic of finding  identity through 'stuff'.  'Stuff' in this instance  may include, but is not limited to  such things as; relationships, jobs, apartments or any of the spin offs in  the Real Housewives franchise. Cheap LOLs aside, this is an important topic for spiritual consideration because identification to any types of these things can invite much angst, anxiety and general pangs of uneasiness into our lives.

When we fall into the mindset that a particular job, relationship or any external object or circumstance is going to give us identity (or worse still, peace),  we lose ourselves in the world and are held hostage to the impermanent nature of objects and circumstances. I bear witness to this struggle in myself and those around me often. We cannot seek Peace through any of these things, because as it turns out, every last one of these things are inevitably subject to change. We leave jobs, relationships dissolve, things are taken from us.