Recently, well for the past 2 years actually, I have not been in a very spiritual place. Perhaps one could call it, “The dark night of the soul”, but I think that would be overly dramatic. I have simply been preoccupied. In these two years I have been busy with an honours degree in psychology and with the all-encompassing pregnancy, birth and care of my two beautiful baby girls. So, my focus has been elsewhere and that has been fine and how it should be, but in the process of turning away from my spirituality, I turned away from myself, my fulfillment and connection to spirit. This is important, because apart from true happiness, being disconnected from spirit and the flow of life, has led I believe to a lot of negative energy and a cycle of (for lack of a better phrase) bad luck. I have felt bewildered for a while over this stuck energy and lack of positive changes in my life and those close to me. Recently I had a dream. In that dream, I entered a shop in a centre. It was a lovely shop, selling interesting things, but the name of the shop was “Powerless”. When I awoke and analysed my dreams, as I do, I marveled at how amazing our subconscious mind is. The name of the shop, in bright letters, accurately described the predominant feeling I have been experiencing in my life. I got the message. Don’t get me wrong, I have not been depressed, or suffering in all areas of my life. In fact, in general I manage pretty well and life is good. I am a strong person and many areas of my life (especially that regarding my family), are thriving and fulfilling, for which I feel truly blessed. It is just that in certain areas there is a need for a shift in energy, more positive events and progress. I know it is a recession and the general global mood is pretty negative and one of ‘lack’ and all that, but still that does not cut it! For a while now I have identified that energy is blocked, I just have done nothing to fix it. For a while, I think I even forgot that I had the power and ability to create the life I want and became like a leaf just floating with the river, even if that river wasn’t particularly going anywhere. Things started to change just before my birthday. I have been trying to figure out how to be of use to the world once again, to make money, have a sense of freedom and independence, all while not having to leave my children in the care of anyone else or have them suffer in any way. This is tricky. I came up with an idea and have slowly been working on it with my wonderfully talented husband (more about this later). Then recently, while doing some research on the internet, I came across a gratitude journal and a woman who spoke about the secret to life being “To Give and to Give thanks”. This resonated with me. I realised how at one point my life was all about giving (although I had to learn lessons there too – like establishing boundaries, not being burnt out etc) and now it was not. Of course, I give all day to my children, but in terms of working with others, things had come to a halt. Even the charity work /karma yoga I used to do, had stopped. Next, there was the part about giving thanks. Strangely enough, I had just created the rhymesandreasons blog and typed my 5 reasons to be grateful on it(see above), so this resonated with me. I understood I needed to practice gratitude daily and stop focusing on what was wrong or needed improving in my life. The secret is to focus on what is right. My brain had been processing this for about a week, until I think there was a shift and I truly got it. Every day now I am giving thanks and have just started a gratitude journal. Those wonderful synchronistic events that were once an everyday occurrence in my life, have now returned and I have encountered numerous references to gratitude journals and the importance of giving thanks (even in the You magazine that I acquired by accident). I then watched a DVD on positive thinking and The Law of Attraction, based on the teachings behind The Secret and even more synchronistic occurrences have resulted these past few days!
I now feel a shift and it fills me with energy, enthusiasm and strength. Nothing major has changed so far, except, and most importantly, my attitude. You see, it all comes down to attitude and while I apply that positive approach to many areas of my life, I have now vowed to apply it to all.
So, watch this space. Magic is happening.