A spiritual teacher once told me "when you get to the place where you really like who you are and where you're at, you'll get grateful for all the s#!t that got you there". She was this little old gray haired lady in running shoes who was my boss when I worked for county alcoholism services back in the 80's. I didn't know then that she was my spiritual teacher and what she said often didn't sound spiritual or make complete sense to me but I knew it was important. She ran the residential program and was always bringing in new ideas, like the concept that we teach best what we most need to learn.  "We could use an Assertion Training Program for the clients. Charly, go put one together and teach it. " She had my number..... and I learned how to be assertive. 

An "angel mother", according to Clarissa Pinkola Estes, is a woman who appears in your life to give you something that you needed and didn't get in your childhood. Ruth was my angel mother for four years and I am, a quarter of a century later, still in awe of the tools she gave. Even my name came about in one of her fortuitous spelling accidents, teaching even without intention that anything, even accidents, can be gifts.

I pass on Ruth's wisdom to my clients and use it to shine light in my own dark places.  I came to understand that everything I experienced, especially the hard stuff, had good for me. Physical injuries helped me to know my unconscious mind, taught me to ask for help, brought me to the Alexander Technique, and provided tools for me to use and teach.  Relationship betrayals taught me lessons in acceptance, forgiveness, and compassion, to take risks and to keep my heart open because I learned that my heart is unbreakable when it is open. Catastrophes revealed hidden strengths and stimulated new brain pathways in the process of seeking solutions. Of course, I didn't usually see all the benefit while I was in the experience, but I learned to trust the process and seek guidance and support. Mostly it was in hindsight that I recognized that all the storms and upheavals  contributed to my knowing myself and growing myself and led me to other wonderful teachers who furthered my education. 

Today I get grateful that I can recognize my fear as it shows itself in new ways before it does much damage. It is illusive and I know it is my unconscious mind trying to prevent additional hurt, struggling to maintain the status quo because that is what the unconscious mind does best. It knows how to handle the status quo and change is scary. Old emotional memories spring to the surface in a misbegotten attempt to protect me. So I befriend my fear, sit quietly with it, observe it, see how it operates and how I can transform that fearful energy into love and gratitude, like my angel mother taught me. Thank you, Ruth, for your grace in my life, for playing it forward before we ever called it that.

Everything that happened in my life got me to where I am today, and I like where I am today. Every single troublesome thing, person and event helped me know myself. So I bless them and thank them and wish them love, happiness, and peace because that is what they have taught me to create. 

Namaste,
Charly

Monkey Mind is described by Wikipedia as a Buddhist term meaning "unsettled; restless; capricious; whimsical; fanciful; inconsistent; confused; indecisive; uncontrollable." It is often used as a psychological metaphor for the chattering conversations in our mind hosted by "the Committee" .... conversations that often results in feelings of worry or anxiety. It is the left side of our brain that likes to justify our participation in these discussions; the part of our mind that likes to figure things out, solve problems, and wants to know the outcome so that we can be best prepared and survive whatever chaos is approaching. It makes good sense to figure out how to handle situations, except sometimes this pattern grows dominant to the point where it interferes with our serenity, creating  disharmony, imbalance, and dis-ease. A line from the Indigo Girls comes to mind: "You can stand there and agonize till your agony's your heaviest load." Our attempted solution has become the problem.

Monkeys often provide perfect imagery for the foibles of humans. Stories tell of catching monkeys by putting food in narrow mouthed jars that are anchored to trees. The monkey puts his hand in the container and grabs the food, and because he won't let go and his closed fist cannot exit through the mouth of the jar, he is captured. How like our mind when it will not let go of a troublesome idea; we hold ourselves prisoner.

It is the letting go that frees the monkey and frees the mind. Letting go of attachment doesn't mean that we give up or quit striving for our goals. It means that we choose to be okay with the reality of what is, that we relinquish our need for there to be a specific outcome, and instead trust that all things unfold in perfect divine order. It means trusting that "the will of God will never take you where the Grace of God will not protect you", as a friend recently quoted to me. This is not an easy practice. I often find myself with my hand in the jar holding onto something that I desperately want, that I want right now. And I am captured, deprived of emotional freedom by my own thoughts. 

So I relinquish my monkey mind by focusing on what brings joy into my life. I choose to inhibit worry and redirect my attention to what makes me happy. I go to the beach, talk to someone I love, do yoga, practice gratitude, dig in the garden, knit, read, listen to music.... If that is not enough to secure the return of my emotional freedom, I know techniques that will shift my energetic vibrations, and if I cannot do it on my own I know people I can ask to help me.  And then sometimes...... I remind myself of the house that I really wanted to buy when I moved back to Florida, the one I was sad not to get because I was second bidder and the first bidder bought it...... the house that was destroyed by hurricanes five months later. And I remember to add to my gratitude list that I don't always get what I want. 

The use of gratitude as a transformative tool has been known to me since about 1980. Right around the time I got the name "Charly" I also got a lot of new and powerful tools. But having a tool and knowing how to use it can be two very different things; the learning curve was steep and long with this one. Cultivating "an attitude of gratitude" is a challenge if your head is filled with stinking thinking, woulds, coulds, shoulds, oughts and if onlies. To choose the action of writing each individual blessing for which you can be  grateful at this moment is a concrete task. It interrupts the flow of negative thinking and routes our thoughts to a new act that generates a feeling of wellbeing. It inhibits the old behavior and redirects thought, then action, to the new behavior. It follows a well documented recipe for change that we see in the Alexander Technique, in cognitive restructuring, in dog training, and in many successful approaches to altering behavior.

Writing is itself therapeutic. The act of typing on a keyboard or making letters with a pen or pencil is involving the body in a mental action. It connects circuitry of our brain with our hand and it connects our unconscious and our conscious mind. The study of the human mind has always fascinated me. It has such complex diversity and ability and yet often follows simple and habitual patterns to its own detriment when the conscious mind and the unconscious mind are working against each other. Writing is perhaps the simplest of the ways to access the unconscious and begin collaboration with the cognitive brain. More than once some pearl of inner wisdom has slipped out my fingers and surprised my eyes when I was writing.

Gratitude, according to Wikipedia, is thankfulness, appreciation, a positive emotion or attitude in acknowledgement of a benefit that one has received or will receive. It has been called the highest form of prayer. It elevates the vibration in our body. Meister Eckhart wrote that "If the only prayer you say in your entire life is 'thank you', it will suffice." It allows us to become aware of the interconnectedness of all things. It is an expansion of our consciousness that invites health and happiness to be a regular component of our life. 

The simple act of writing a list of your blessings incorporates three proven methods for change: prayer, writing and the stop & redirect approach. Sometimes it is hard to get started and we have to go to the very basics. In  Letter to My Daughter Maya Angelou wrote about a time when she was so depressed that she had thoughts of killing herself and her young son. In desperation, she went to see a friend whose response to her suicidal intention was to sit her down with a pen and pad and insist she write her blessings, starting with the fact that she could hear.... then that she could see... could read...... When she reached that last line of her page, "the madness was routed". 

The hardest part for me was remembering to use this tool when I needed it. I've learned that if I make gratitude part of my daily practice it is easier to think of it when I have need. I usually start with "I am grateful I can walk", but seeing and hearing and loving follow up real quick. So what are you grateful for today? Go ahead and write it down, try this simple exercise. See how it makes you feel. And if you would like to share something about this experience, click on "Comment" above and there will be a place for you to post your comments. Thank you.