Take a scenario-
“You get up in the morning, feeling purposeless, uninspired and burdened with the thoughts of the previous day and whole of your life. You know there are things you do which make feel alive, make you feel motivated, yet you do not have any energy physically and mentally to get going on those things. You wrap your morning shawl and slump yourself in a chair, staring at nothing and feeling anxious and helpless.”
At this stage, if someone comes and tells you about deeper meaning of life, being in gratitude for what all you have, will the mind accept any of it? In fact, it might go into a stage of further helplessness that it is doing none of it. People who have more pains and problems in life, get up motivated to achieve something or the other. And, here you are moping for nothing.
I narrate this with conviction, as this was my morning and it has been this way for past few weeks, getting worse everyday. Even after my mediation practices, my gratitude journey, consuming of constant knowledge of the meaning and purpose of life, yet I woke up today burdened by the events of the previous day and with no energy to move ahead or be in any kind of inspiration to move ahead. One may wonder, how come I am writing about gratitude then.
Here is what happened — “Spending time on the terrace is my favorite activity. Looking around the green tall trees, taking in the fresh morning air, sounds of the birds chirping as they go about their morning routine lift my spirits up boundlessly. I tried going to the terrace today morning as well, although everything was the same, in fact a slight drizzle was even added to the mix, yet I was feeling numb and anxious. I slumped on a chair in the corner, staring into nothing, getting even more perturbed why this beautiful scene in front of me isn’t lifting me up. Now, this is when the magic happened after sometime had passed. Somewhere hidden inside and faintly, a voice reminded me of gratefulness. I acknowledged that voice, yet it did not change anything immediately for my state of mind. What it did, was plant a seed of thought to contemplate gratitude at that very moment.”
I then realized the following:
- I wasn’t present in that moment, on that beautiful scene being played out on the terrace. I was in the thoughts and events of pain themselves.
- I was feeling guilty of feeling the pain.
- I had forgotten that I had a choice to come out of it.
- I was feeling alone in my struggle.
Let me tell you in detail how the mindset shifted further..
- Firstly I reminded myself that I am never alone. There is always a force within me, around me which looks after me. And I recalled the events when ‘this force’ had miraculously made its presence felt.
- I never fully acknowledge my own pain. I feel I am being ridiculous to feel this way. Hence, this morning I completely acknowledged to the mind that it had the right to feel this way, it is ok to feel this way. The more I denied it the right, the more agitated the mind got. I stayed with this thought for a while.
- I could finally start a deeper conversation with the mind. It went like this: “In-spite of the pain you feel, you are still ‘able to’ be here in this wonderful morning.” This, I realized was the true catch-phrase for the mind. ‘To be able to’ do and experience things in spite of the presence of the hurt. If the hurt did not kill you it means you are still existing, doing something. As soon as you remind the mind this one thing, that it is still ‘able to’ to do something, it will start co-operating and be reminded of so much it is still ‘able to’ do. And this is what I did. I said to myself, I am ‘able to’ be here in this beautiful weather peacefully, I am ‘able to’ hear the birds chirping, I am ‘able to’ smell the fresh rain of the winter and so forth. Soon this ‘able to’ will turn to, I am ‘fortunate to’ experience this quiet time for myself. I am ‘fortunate to’ hear the eagles sing and so forth. As soon as the belief comes to the mind that it is ‘fortunate for’ something, gratefulness for that ‘thing’ also comes along. And slowly, the higher emotion of gratitude fills you up. It becomes effortless to feel grateful. Even the moments of pain feels like a blessing, that it brought me such wonderful realizations.
- What happens as a result of the above? You feel inspired again, you feel yourself again. You feel NORMAL again. Ready to take on the day, ready to take on life again. Learning: Start with the basics and when mind is ready, move to deeper knowledge.
- And this is how, I felt inspired to write this experience after being uninspired for months…
The ‘able to’ and feeling ‘fortunate for’ things are different for each individual. Say to yourself whatever is important for You!
Signing off with a thought….My bread and butter is gratitude for this life in front of me…if I am not grateful, I am dying. And, all I need is a reminder to pull myself back :)
