The Attitude of Gratitude

The lovely Savannah posted this today and I wanted to share this with you (if any of you are still here).

Coupled with this address by Joss Whedon, it kind of sums up where I am and where I think health and happiness lies - gratitude and self-acceptance.

I adored Whedon's take on contradiction. 

Contradiction is where the interesting things in Life happen. 

The most interesting people I've ever met have been filled with contradiction and paradox. 

In the last few months, I put NLP and self-help and personal development to one side. I've taken down my twitter and Facebook page. My focus has been on getting my life in order. My life is changing and I wanted to sit with the many changes going on with as little interference as possible.

I have been trying to live with as little interference as possible.

My interference and others.

It's been a huge freedom for me to realise that I don't need to interfere with my thinking, or my being. Learning not to interfere has not come easily to me. I've always been a Change Things kind of girl. Now I'm an Acceptance kind of woman. I'm learning (note it's a work in progress) that I don't need to change anything in me, or anything with someone else, or the world. I can't. 

Given that I have a degree in Development Studies (change the world) and I'm a licensed NLP Practitioner (change other people and myself), you see this is a mammoth task for me.

News Agencies and social media tell me, the World is going down the Toilet, if only someone would just bloody flush already. My daily experience is: I love my Boy, he loves me back. I love my partner, he loves me back. My friends and I try to be the best friends we can for each other. The people in the city in which I live are on the whole, good people. We all have good/bad/indifferent days together. On Facebook and twitter, it's pretty much the same.

I resolved the contradiction by being grateful. I keep an eye on the news, but I don't invite it into my brain or my psyche. My first stop is my direct experience and I chose the good things over the negative.

Ranting doesn't seem as much fun as it used to. Ranting at the world, politics, men, women, big corporations. Anyway, no one listens when you shout angry words. Yes, I occasionally have enjoyed a bloody good argument over the internet. But I got bored of listening to myself argue. Because that's the only person who was listening to me. The other person was busy listening to themselves and their arguments. Nothing I ranted at them made any difference.

So I've been doing different things instead. I find I am happy and content through the good days, bad days and indifferent days. It's all good.