Fresh Thoughts for Your Monday: Cultivate a Spirit of Contentment

It’s November. Thanksgiving will be upon us in just a few weeks. When you think about Thanksgiving—both the holiday and the state of being—what can you name right now that you’re thankful for?

When you’re grateful and you see abundance in your life, have you found that your perspective changes and it’s easier to see more and more abundance, that your abundance grows?

When you’re grateful, does it help you to see that you have “enough” in life, that it changes your needs and wants?

Today, this week: Ask yourself, “What does having ‘enough’ mean to me?” Then, cultivate a spirit of contentment.

Living Inside Me

I read an interesting quote attributed to Grammy award-winning singer Lisa Fischer in the June 30, 2013 edition of Parade:  "One constant: I know who's living inside me.  I like her."  How many of us really know who is living inside us and like that person?  How many of us allow ourselves to be that person living inside of us without feeling compelled to be what others want us to be?  What is the price of being our true, genuine selves (or not)?  I've read that as we grow older, we become happier with life and content with ourselves.  Yet, I see article after article about how to cope with stress and how to find happiness.  As my husband Larry said, happiness is not about the destination, but about the journey.  It's how we frame our life's circumstances to see the blessings and the sacred moments, and how much we're willing to be our true, genuine selves, so that like Lisa Fischer, we can be assured that we know and like the person living inside us.

Wabi-sabi

My friend Kitty shared the February/March 2011 Mother Earth News magazine with me recently, drawing my attention particularly to an article about wabi-sabi, a Japanese philosophy about appreciating things, even when they are imperfect, incomplete, simple and subtle.  Wabi-sabi promotes a physical and psychological space devoid of clutter and distraction, yet abundant in serenity and contentment.  I read the article with fascination, for if I had to put a word to the life I try to create for myself and the atmosphere in which I try to live, it would be wabi-sabi.  As I talk with friends and colleagues who have such busy lives, I see my own life more clearly. I have chosen a different path for myself (and in some ways, the path has chosen me) that embraces the simple, clean, slow and silent.  I've gladly exchanged my previously more frenzied days for today's quieter ones. Time to contemplate and pay attention is more than a luxury.  It is wabi-sabi.