We all have it.
You have it, they have it, I have it. That core at my center – the value that keeps me energized and in love with life. Just like a center of gravity, its placement in me drives my progress, affecting the way I move through life.
In the past few years, I realized that mine is Gratitude.
It’s my Center of Gratitude.
This last year I’ve been deeply devoted to sharing this lesson of Gratitude….first the cards and all they entailed, then diving into the creation of their companion book. A poem to explore each card, a retelling of what Gratitude means, of how I discovered her and her elements.
Through this my Center of Gratitude was soaring – rooted there in my heart, sometimes lifting me so high my feet seemed to not touch the earth! Those were heady times, indeed! Dizzying, even.
Then life stepped in. We traveled for the first time in a long time. Our furthest trip away, our first time away in years. It was beautiful. Wonder-filled. Drenched in history and art and teeming with kindness and the energies of throngs of people surrounding us….and their germs.
I returned with a nasty cold. It seems it took me six weeks to travel for twelve days.
As with all things, the cold passed and my body began to feel normal. Yet I rattled around home as if I’d lost all purpose. I dove into finishing the design of my book. I tried reconnecting with friends.
I felt sluggish, stuck, enslaved by inertia.
My Center of Gratitude has fallen.
It dropped so low any movement is hard. I feel pulled to the floor as if I want nothing more than to lay about all day.
Only I know I don’t want to be there, to be so low. I want to soar again.
This feeling off – this feeling that others are living but I am just marking time – is exactly the sign I need that it is time to revive my Center of Gratitude.
Because I realize I feel far from Kind, that I feel separated from my Community, that I can’t See the Beauty right before my eyes. As I trace back through each of the elements of Gratitude I understand. Now is the time to begin again, to walk through those elements as if they are new to me.
And so I begin again with Thankfulness.
Thank you for being here with me on this journey. Thank you for seeing me, even when I do not see myself. Thanks to the Source, to the earth, for the birds I hear raising their beautiful voices despite the grey and gloom and cold. Thanks for the luxury of this computer, this comfortable home, the food we have and can share with our friends.
Yes, this is where it begins again.
With thanks.
What are you thankful for?
I’m thankful for your friendship and the lessons in gratitude you share with me (as well as the rest of the world). I’m thankful for the life of enough — enough food, enough clothing, enough shelter. Sure, it’s not luxurious. It’s not always comfortable. Yet, it’s enough.
I believe that those of us who are here to teach and inspire — and you are obviously here to do that, Teresa — signed a preincarnational contract. Among other things, it read, “Thou shalt agree to continue to learn on an ever-deepening level the lessons you are going to Planet Earth to teach. ” And so you, with your message of gratitude, continue to receive challenges that deepen your practice of gratitude.
I just experienced something similar. I questioned the vision I have for my life, my dreams, my message, my mission — all those things I am here to inspire and help people to discover. Now that I am coming out of that dark night of the soul, I am even more recommitted to the work I do. But, wow, it was a painful period!
To answer your question, Teresa, I am thankful for you — who were a beam of sunlight through my dark night of the soul. I am thankful for the awe I felt when I came into contact with your multi-faceted creativity because it reconnected me to the Source of all creativity. And I’m thankful for the truthtellers, like yourself, who remind me I’m not alone on this journey.