Friday 31 May 2013

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.

6 comments:

  1. Replies
    1. Thank you for coming by.

      Oh and I put the link to your blog! I thought I had...but I forgot. Oops.

      Lots of love to you darling.
      xxxx

      Delete
  2. Wonderful!

    And very much in keeping with what you recently posted - "Peace is the result of retraining your mind to process life as it is, rather than as you think it should be." (I still love that)

    Such a curious thing (and, indeed, almost contradictory!) that the process of learning not to feel a need for change is a process that requires such massive change.

    Maybe that's the point. Maybe such a change is the Ultimate Change, the one at the end of the road, the hardest one to make. But, I think... It also sounds the most satisfying.

    Love this, "I got bored of listening to myself argue. Because that's the only person who was listening to me."

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. The Work by Byron Katie has been such a profound influence on me.

      She says when you argue with reality you only lose 100% of the time. Our suffering comes out of our constant argument with reality. The argument changes nothing.

      Delete
  3. It's funny that I should pick today to visit here. I just finished writing a post in which I said some of the very same things you did, only I left it in draft because it's Friday night and my experience is that if I post it now then no one will read it. So I left it in draft. Ranting is exhausting. Caring is exhausting. Being upset and trying to battle the demons is exhausting. Sometimes you just have to enjoy life and let the bad things go. Sometimes you have to stop fighting and enjoy simply being alive.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. That's exactly it.

      Being in the moment is all that matters.

      Delete

Ladies and Gentlemen, welcome. Pull up a chair, have a cup of coffee, make yourself at home.