Our Higher Self: Gratitude and Discovering Joy

As we move rapidly toward Thanksgiving here in the US and the beginning of the Holiday Season around the world, I find myself a bit more reflective, and focusing energy on gratitude.  One of Inspirited Living’s Daily Introspectives captures the sentiment for me. 

 It is in the gratitude for our many, many, blessings, that we discover joy.

Gratitude comes first. The joy comes only after the realization of gratitude; from our appreciation for, and awareness of all of our blessings. 

Gratitude and Discovering Joy: What are You Grateful for Today?

As we move rapidly toward Thanksgiving here in the US and the beginning of the Holiday Season around the world, I find myself a bit more reflective, and focusing energy on gratitude. One of Inspirited Living’s Daily Introspectives captures the sentiment for me.It’s easy to get caught up in the whirlwind of the changing season.  What we need to get done… and how much more there is to do.  When we get caught in the doing, we forget to be in the moment, and notice all that there is.  All that we have to be grateful for.  

Let’s do a little exercise to strengthen our awareness.  What are you grateful for right now, in this moment? 

I’m grateful for …

I’m grateful for …

I’m grateful for …

Did it take you a moment to think about it? Did your thoughts interrupt as you were flooded with all that needs to be done? When you tried to slow down, were you suddenly aware of not enough and the need to acquire more?

You’re not alone.  This very common experience is exactly why we need to focus on gratitude.  

We can actually practice and get better at being grateful, and it turns out the benefits of practicing gratitude can reverberate through all aspects of our lives.

Our Higher Self: Why Should We Practice Gratitude?

Brené Brown’s (PhD) YouTube video on gratitude is an excellent place to start when considering WHY it matters, and HOW it helps to take the time to notice and be grateful. 

In her interview for Goop, Brené Brown’s talked about the role of gratitude in the lives of people who felt joy. Her research showed that: “Without exception, every person I interviewed who described living a joyful life or described themselves as joyful, actively practiced gratitude and attributed their own joyfulness to that practice.” 

That’s a VERY powerful link between joy and gratitude.

Gratitude and Joy: What am I Grateful for Today?

Sometimes we struggle to develop a gratitude practice.  

I promise; discovering what we are grateful for is a profound experience.  To get you started, I thought it might be helpful to share the process I created at Inspirited Living to focus and find gratitude.  Let me know if this helps, or if you have something that works, and you’d like to share with others!

First, I find it helpful to take a moment to ground myself. Some people have very deep grounding practices, some people take just a few moments to bring their awareness to the present. 

I like to take a deep breath and focus on the immediate moment. 

Not the future and not the past. Just the single moment of right now. 

Suspended between what we could have done and what we should do, the present is something we can really shift our attention towards. 

Focusing on right now; This one shining moment

The truth is that it can be extremely difficult just to let ourselves be in the present.  Sometimes we have to work at it a bit. 

I find that somatic cues – physical cues – help quite a bit.  When I am able to get my mind to stop spinning, and my body to be aware of where I am in the moment, it softens.  

Then I’m ready for the next step.  I ask myself the simplest question: what am I grateful for right now?  Sometimes it has to start with something as simple as, I’m grateful for the birds, or the trees; or the sun, or the moon or the stars.  I find that if I can find at least 2 things that I’m grateful for, many more flow into my mind.  It was fascinating for me to learn that this concept is also backed by science. 

Gratitude and Joy: Practical Gratitude for the Over 50s!

My life has changed so much over time.  I have discovered that as I’ve navigated different challenges and experiences my sense of wonder and gratitude has evolved.  Since I turned 50, I have a deeper awareness that there is more to be grateful for than there is to be afraid of.  

Our awareness of the past and the future can be overwhelming at times, so being present in this moment and focusing on my connection to my Higher Self, My Soul Self works for me.   

For example, I ground, and invite myself to be aware that I’m connected.  When I start with gratitude from that connected place, it doesn’t matter what I am grateful for, I become aware that I have more energy…. I notice more depth in the colors around me… more beauty in the mundane… more appreciation for others.  

For example, I might feel grateful for the new day, and as I prepare my tea in the morning, my sense of smell is heightened when I feel grateful. 

The beauty of gratitude is that it helps us get out of the fight or flight part of our brain and into our conscious awareness.   As we focus on what we are aware of in the present, we become more aware of more that we can be grateful for.  

For me, I feel the connection to my Higher Self, Soul Self, in gratitude that connects all my senses.

Practical Gratitude for the Over 50s: Not for the Faint of Heart!

Above all else, I have learned that practical gratitude for the over 50s is not for the faint of heart!

In earlier decades I might not have noticed my health or my physical strength, but as I do things like care for aging parents or helping my adult children, I feel a wash of gratitude that I can physically and mentally do this.  

Like many of you, as my parents age, and I become more aware of what that aging looks and feels like, I find myself grateful that I have the emotional, physical, and spiritual strength to be there for them right now.

At this point in my life, I’m keenly aware that nothing is perfect.  Some of my joints ache, I don’t have the same strength I had when I was younger. I have found that when I focus on what is not working, or what I don’t have, I get more of it. I experience it more deeply.   

So, instead, I choose to focus on gratitude.  I can focus my gratefulness around dimensions of my physical body. My health, how I breathe, the strength in my hands.

I may be grateful for a feeling: gratitude for the vitality and joy my golden doodles express when they bounce with sparkling eyes, the feeling that get in the moment, seeing their joy.  Such a precious moment of gratitude.

Perhaps I am grateful for something I sense: that today I have the time to catch my breath, that I am safe, supported, and whole. No matter the conditions of the world around me, I can be grateful for my completeness.

Perhaps I am grateful for my resiliency, my deep-seated knowledge that no matter the conditions of the day, that all is well. No matter who needs support or comfort or tending to in the twilight of their lives, that I am whole, healthy, resilient, and that I know joy.

Gratitude and Joy: How to Practice Gratitude and Joy When You are Out of Practice!

Practicing Gratitude and Joy may come to you very easily. You may already have a gratitude diary. You may have a ritual around sending thank you notes to sincerely express your appreciation to someone else for their kindness…You may write your gratitude on the fridge or say what you are grateful for at dinner!

You may have created a ritual just for you that intentionally puts gratitude into your day. 

Or, perhaps practicing gratitude may feel….silly. Perhaps you feel like you are tempting fate, or you don’t want to draw attention to what you a grateful for in case something happens to cause you to lose that feeling. 

Sometimes we even feel guilty about feeling grateful because we are fortunate enough to find things to be grateful for and we are aware that others don’t have as much as we do.  Victor Frankel in Man’s Search for Meaning makes it very clear that no matter how much or how little we have, the most resilient people find a way to be present in the moment and be grateful. 

Franke suggests that if we are to survive, or experience our best life, there’s really not a single good reason not to focus on gratitude. Not even when you’re in a concentration camp.  

Gratitude and Joy: One Shining Moment

One way to help yourself is to ground the gratitude in the small, single, thing floats to the top of your mind when you say “gratitude.” Perhaps it’s a feeling? A physical feeling that tingles, a sense that there’s a little smile about something? Seeing the sunlight? Being exactly where you are today to hear a bird sing.  

Gratitude isn’t a grand gesture. 

We may have to let go of perfection. It’s not about impressing anyone else (or even our inner critic!) with how big or eloquent our gratitude is…the only one listening to you, is you. The most important connection you’re making is with your own soul self. 

Take a moment today and figure out, what does gratitude feel like for you? Even if you don’t have a lot of practice with gratitude or it feels fleeting, evaporating when you start to focus on it, just notice that one small moment of the gratitude, and be grateful for it.

As your gratitude practice unfolds, I would love to hear from you! Please feel free to send an email and let me know how it feels when you shift from focusing on the past and the future to focusing on what you are grateful for right now.

Many blessings
Lynne

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Our Higher Self: How Music Flows Within Women

We are uplifted this week by a French cellist, who is rescuing and recording music by female composers. Héloïse Luzzati’s YouTube channel (The Jewel Box) has complex, uplifting, and rarely heard music by women. The story from Positive News magazine notes that “just 5% of the music played by modern orchestras in 2020-21 was composed by women.” The Jewel Box is a delightful contribution intent on improving that statistic.We are uplifted this week by a French cellist, who is rescuing and recording music by female composers.  Héloïse Luzzati’s YouTube channel (The Jewel Box) has complex, uplifting, and rarely heard music by women. The story from Positive News magazine notes that “just 5% of the music played by modern orchestras in 2020-21 was composed by women.”  The Jewel Box is a delightful contribution intent on improving that statistic.

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Our Higher Self: Inspirited Living’s Introspectives

Each week I send out four thoughts that string together to make one larger one on Friday. We call them Inspirited Living Introspectives. They are thoughts that help shape, and even shift our perspectives.Each week I send out four thoughts that string together to make one larger one on Friday.  We call them Inspirited Living Introspectives. They are thoughts that help shape, and even shift our perspectives. Sometimes Inspirited Living Introspections are thoughts that I’m working with myself. And, sometimes they’re related to things I’ve noticed in the collective.

Our Higher Self: How Energy Flows, Meditation, and Yoga Nidra

This week I was thinking about how energy flows. 

We know from our science classes that energy can neither be created nor destroyed. It simply flows from one place, one person, one spirit to the next… flowing through all living things.

When it gets stuck, or held too tightly in our bodies, we feel anxious or tense. When it gets unblocked and can move, we experience relaxation and relief. That’s the connection to Our Higher Self, Our Soul Self.

When we become aware of holding, and become unblocked, we are free to feel the connection, compassion, and creativity of our Higher Self, Our Soul Self.

Our Higher Self: How do I Unblock Energy?

Many of us practice grounding—bringing ourselves to a quiet restfulness in order to notice where the energy is stuck or flowing. Many of us practice yoga nidra—full body mindfulness to help move energy along. And many of us practice meditation to understand where, how, and why energy can stop flowing.

We know how this can feel to us. Tense and achy muscles, headaches, shortness of breath and restlessness are often physical manifestations of blocked energy.

And we know how marvelous the relief feels: when we notice, turn towards what is blocked, focus our compassion on why we are blocked, and allow ourselves to let go of blocked energy. Pema Chodron’s website has guidance on how Buddhism can guide us through this process, too.  It’s amazing how that can work!

At Beachwood Integrative Equine Therapy we connect with our Higher Selves, and focus on releasing and moving the stuck energy inside of us by working with the horses.  Beachwood’s horses are amazing at helping us to become aware, and to heal and help things move. 

There are many approaches, and one result.  How much better we can feel when we realize that holding and pushing through doesn’t work as well as opening our hearts, our minds and our bodies to connection and allowing that energy to flow.  

Our Higher Self: Incongruence and Pleasing Others

When we pay attention to energy moving, we may even begin to notice what blocked energy feels like to those around us. How does our holding, or our stuck places, our blocks, show up in our interactions with those around us? 

What does it feel like when you can sense something is wrong for another person, but you don’t know what you are sensing?

Our Higher Self: Inspirited Living’s Introspectives and Incongruent Energy

What I wrote this week focused on how it feels when we don’t feel safe, and parts of us hold.  Sometimes, to save energy, or to not feel what we don’t want to feel, we pretend to be okay, even when we are not.

Monday: When we discount our own feelings because we want to feel differently than we do, or when we want to please someone else, we appear incongruent.

Tuesday: Anyone who’s been badly burned and struggles with trust will often behave incongruently.

Wednesday: Horses read incongruous energy loud and clear.

Thursday: Energy is not something you can see or hear or taste, but you definitely feel it. 

Our Higher Self: Incongruence feels Uncomfortable for Everyone

We may think that we are covering it up well—maybe we think no one will notice.

Maybe we want to fool ourselves into believing it really is ok. 

The truth is, we feel what we feel. We can feel happy, joyful, ecstatic, hopeful, optimistic, and boundlessly enthusiastic. Those are our feelings.  

We also feel pain, sadness, discomfort, hopelessness, jealousy, and anger.  Those are the ones we usually want to cover up.

Sometimes we discount or push away our own feelings because we think we shouldn’t feel them, or we feel ashamed of feeling them.  Other times we might disconnect and cover up our feelings because we think other people won’t approve, or worse, will disconnect from us or hurt us because of the way we feel.  No matter what the reason,  people can tell when we are incongruent.

It’s a sense we all have, that we don’t teach about.  It’s an ability that helps us feel safe. When we notice that someone is behaving one way, but they are holding, or feeling differently, we notice and are aware. 

We sense, at a very deep level, that the outside and the inside are not lined up. And that incongruence registers as something to worry about or be afraid of… 

When we are incongruent, it makes others uncomfortable, and they may follow their own instincts. They may avoid us. They may cut interactions short. They may steer clear of spending time with us. Anything to get some distance between themselves and this disconcerting feeling that something isn’t right.

Our Higher Self: Why do We Pretend?

If being incongruent makes everyone, including us, feel uncomfortable and icky, then why do we do it?  One of the many reasons is self-protection. Anyone who has been badly burned by other people learns to protect themselves.  It’s just how we survive.

When we try to protect ourselves, we hide, or make our feelings more socially acceptable. 

We behave the way we learned to behave the first time we experienced that it wasn’t safe to show what we feel.  Maybe we were shamed for feelings when we were young, told we were bad for feeling things like jealously, or anger. Or taught that others don’t want to know when we experience feelings that have been called negative. And then we learn to hide our feelings, or to show feelings that aren’t genuine; in other words, to behave incongruently.  

Our Higher Self: Community and Connection

All of us have to juggle one of the most fundamental needs of all humans: staying connected.  It might be tempting to think that if we all just expressed all of our feelings honestly, then everything will be perfect.    

In reality, we know instinctively that in order to survive, we need to stay connected with our families, our friends, and our communities of choice.  It’s part of being human. 

As I talk about in our Inspirited Living BeComing You Intro Course, being connected keeps us alive. Being connected brings us joy, safety, compassion, support, and love. 

Living connected means that we feel with and for each other.  That means that when we live together connected, we have to be pretty responsible for our feelings!  And that’s really difficult to do when our society doesn’t teach us how to carefully and safely express our emotions.  

So how can we stay connected and stay congruent at the same time? How can we navigate human relationships and express our true feelings without editing ourselves?  

On our road to self discovery, we have to learn enough about ourselves, and how we feel, from a perspective of self-compassion and love.  

Our Higher Self: Horses Help Show Us How to Connect

Many of us have experienced the incredible connection with a favorite animal or pet. Interestingly, studies have shown that horses have a very special connection with humans.  

As fight or flight animals, horses are constantly reading their environment, including us. Watch a herd of horses communicate in a field and you can see how energy moves through and between them, because they live together, most often unblocked; openly allowing it to move freely, strongly, and healthily.

Horses are communicating, having interactions with each other constantly. And, they still stay connected. Expressing their emotions in a healthy herd is expected and required to keep everyone safe.

Our Higher Self: Energy is Something You Can Feel

As we start to wrap up our harvest season and store energy for the dormant months ahead, I wrote these Inspirited Living Introspectives to help us remember the importance of not shutting down. Our energy still needs to flow. Our feelings and needs, connected to our communities, are still important.

As the Northern Hemisphere prepares for darkness, we also prepare for winter festivals, and we often become incredibly busy. It’s so easy to tuck away our true feelings, our true needs, and inadvertently disconnect from our friends and families because they sense our incongruence.  

Now, more than ever, we need community, compassion, and kindness. And we need our energy to flow in order to stay connected, inspired, uplifted, and supported.

Many Blessings
Lynne

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Our Higher Self: Letting Go of Perfection

Our Higher Self: Letting Go of Perfection

Photo by niko photos on Unsplash

Last week, I wrote about Our Higher Self, our Soul Self Our Soul Self, Our Higher Self.

“Some people call it our Soul. Some people call it our connection with God or a Creator. Some people call it our connection with the Universe or the Spirit part of us. 

In my mind’s eye, our Higher Self is the part of us that is connected to all things.  

It’s the energy that flows through our bodies just as it flows through every other living thing … it’s what we all have in common.  It is what we share and bonds us.  We each use it differently, making each one of us a unique expression of The Divine.  

The Higher Self lives is the spirit part of us. It flows through us and resides in us and with us.  It draws us, leads us, and can accompany us, to or through our lives if we open and allow it to.”

Our Higher Self: Self-Doubt as a part of Self-Discovery

As we explore the idea of self-discovery, some people might say “I’d love to open an allow my Higher Self to lead me…but….”

Everyone has a different version of the “but….”

It may be “but, I don’t deserve it…” or 

“but, I don’t know how…” or 

“but, I’m not good at this stuff….” or 

“I won’t like who I really am….”

Self-doubt and self-criticism and judgement can creep in to sabotage our best intentions. The question is: in the process of self discovery, what drives us away from self-acceptance? What thwarts our ability to be more compassionate and kind to ourselves?

Self Discovery: Blocks to Self-Acceptance

What gets in the way of self-acceptance and of choosing to be kind and compassionate to our gloriously imperfect selves? Bringing our awareness to the roadblocks, habits, and social conditioning that get us off track helps us shift our awareness and be intentional about our self-talk and our self-acceptance journey.

Let’s start with the most pervasive and nebulous idea that haunts most of us…

Being good.

Why do we place “being good” above self care or safety? How do we listen to and honor our Higher Self?

We learn at a very young age, that being good keeps us safe and connected to those who care for us.  Being good, or behaving acceptably, keeps us from being punished, shamed or ostracized. 

Feeling connected, whether as a child or as an adult, is a basic human need. We are connected to all living things. We are designed  to live connected and in communities. So the drive to find our people, to stay connected, when our society is changing so fast has become quite an undertaking.  We don’t always realize it, but we stay on guard and  alert most of the time.

Self Discovery: Designed to be Connected

So many recent studies from organizations such as NAMI.org are showing that mental health is a major issue for so many. Following the pandemic of the past few years, the extent of political divisiveness and the resultant fear, the economy, and job security, in addition to our personal lives, fear, anxiety, stress, and worry have become a mainstay for so many of us.  

One of our most basic vulnerabilities, our most basic fears, is how do I stay connected? 

We learn this as infants. Being connected means staying alive. Being connected means being fed, comforted, warm, and alive. And we also learn our own special version of what being connected requires.

If you think back to the childhood stories that have been told about you, were you the “good” one? Were you the one who never gave anyone trouble? Were you the one who slept through the night? Were you the one who shared and played nicely?

It’s worth taking a moment to consider how much social conditioning goes into that word “good.” We absorb the lessons of what other people think is good from the moment we open our eyes.

Our Higher Self: Being Good Enough

So, here is a radical thought, what if good for other people is not always what is good for us? 

What if being good enough for other people, is not healthy for you? What if someone else’s version of good, keeps you from being open to your Higher Self, your intuition, your Soul Self?

Perhaps you already know this? Perhaps your Higher Self has been trying to draw your attention to the relationships, the interactions, the jobs, and the dreams that you need more of?  The ones that will feed and nourish and grow YOU. 

Perhaps you have an inkling, a tickle in your mind, a dream that you can turn more towards that would feed your soul? 

What would happen if that means you’re not going to fit in to someone else’s definition of “good” or “good enough” for your life. 

It’s a very simple, yet VERY scary idea.

Why? Because so much of our culture is based more on surviving than thriving, on external approval rather than internal awareness and confidence. So much of our culture is based on what we do rather than who we are.

Our Higher Self: Simply Being Human  

Simply being a human being, simply being human, can be really difficult to find time for: we can miss the signs from our Higher Self, our Soul Self. We can skip listening in to ourselves and really hearing what our inner self is experiencing or needs.  

This week, let’s try an experiment. 

I invite you to notice what it feels like to know that what is best for you, might not be what others want you to do or be.  

Feel the tension, the anxiety, or even the dread.  

When you notice it, move away to a quiet spot and allow your self to envision what it would feel like to do and be the full expression of YOU.

 Allow yourself to experience the feeling and spend energy listening and enjoying that good feeling of being all of you.  Then notice the shifts.  

I’d love to hear about your experiences.
You can write them down and send them to [email protected].
We look forward to hearing from you!

Many blessings
Lynne

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