I've been feeling gratitude all day for how far away I've come from fear, what I call my terminal self-consciousness, second guessing my choices, being on my case so much more than off it, and many other things that were keeping me from feeling equanimity - at least from time to time. Fear made me a block of ice, unable to melt enough to learn something new. I didn't know it, but I was looking for faith, some hope that there was a benevolent force in the universe that wanted me, would help me, to be all right.
My fear was an unchanging oppression but faith was not. Faith grew and for every inch it gained, fear lost an inch as well. Slowly, growing faith brought my fear down to size, until I was able to find the courage to soften, to become receptive, to take the risk of surrendering so that something else, aside from me, could come in and help me change. I began to experience for myself the power of spiritual principles - powerlessness and surrender, faith and courage, belief in something beyond myself, that benevolent power for change.
No wonder I'm often flooded with gratitude. I've found the path to peace and acceptance even though sometimes it takes me a while to get there. When I feel gratitude, I'm thinking about all I have, not what I don't have. Gratitude comes out of the deepest part of me and fills me with love for the world. It has the expansiveness, the grandeur of deep connection to the world. I call it the aristocrat of emotions.
No comments:
Post a Comment