Читать книгу A Conspiracy to Love: Living a Life of Joy, Generosity, and Power (Revised Edition) - River Jr. Smith - Страница 4

How can I be happy when I don’t have enough love in my life? How can I be happy when I don’t have enough good health in my life? How can I be happy when I don’t have enough money? When I don’t have enough friends? Enough time?

At any moment in time on our journeys, there will always be things we can identify that are lacking. It doesn’t take much effort for most of us to come up with something we don’t have enough of. We’ve been taught that we live in a world of scarcity, rather than abundance. Most of us believe there’s not enough, and many of us believe we’re not enough. As we think of what’s missing, how-ever, in that same moment, there will also always be something we have, something we possess, and the good news is that we have the choice to center ourselves on either what we don’t have or on what is actually there, actually present for us in that moment.

In this moment.

Not long ago a client was speaking to me, telling me that her life seemed cursed. She thought may-be her dead, abusive husband was reaching up from the grave to control her. “Anything that can go wrong is going wrong.”

I asked her to give me examples. “Well, I tried to get a job, and the day of my interview my cat got sick, and I couldn’t go. I tried to take the cat to the vet, and my car wouldn’t start. I got it checked and it‘s going to cost me almost $300.00 to get it fixed.”

I asked if there was anything else. “Of course there is. My brother was going to help me with finances this month, but now the IRS is auditing him. Every relationship I’ve had since Jim died, I’ve ended up getting hurt. I had to give our dog up, and she got killed three months later. My son tries to help me move the last time, and he injures his back, and then loses his job because he can’t work. My friend agrees to give me a ride to the doctor, and she gets in a car accident on her way to pick me up.”

“Anything else?”

“Isn’t that enough? My life is cursed!”

“Yes, that’s more than enough. Those are certainly some very unfortunate incidents that create a lot of challenges.” I asked if she would spend a few moments with me brainstorming things that could have gone wrong but didn’t.

If rain doesn’t fall, corn doesn’t grow. Yoruba proverb

So Marge and I sat there listing things like:

“My cat could have died.

My car could have been totally broken.

My friend could have been hurt in the accident.”

And so on.

It was important to make the list realistic because those issues must feel as legitimate as possibilities as the unfortunate events that did take place.

Once we finished that list, I asked Marge to do something I’ve been doing for many years. I asked her if there was anything she could think of right now in her life for which she was grateful. She thought for a moment, and said, “ I’m grateful for my son.” She paused, “I’m grateful for my grand-daughter.” She paused again, “And I’m grateful for my son’s girlfriend. She’s a sweetheart, and she’s real good for him.” Now she was on a roll. “I’m grateful that it didn’t rain on my way here. I’m grateful for Muffin even though she costs me a lot of money at the vet.” In the next few minutes Marge created a long list.

River’s gratitude list: I’m grateful to you for buying and reading this book. Grateful for Judy, co-conspirator on this book and so many of my life’s works, grateful for Tom, co-conspiring on the CD, and all the other music we’ve created together. Grateful to my mother for allowing me to brush her long, thick hair on Friday evenings when I was a child….

Since this is a book about finding and experiencing love, happiness, and power in your life, I would like you to practice focusing first on what you have. That doesn’t mean we won’t acknowledge the difficulty, pain, and struggle. I just recommend that as part of this journey, you take some time to enjoy what you do have by keeping a gratitude inventory. As you’ll see by reading mine, you can be grateful for anything you choose, anything you think of, from any moment of your life. Just start the sentence with I am grateful for (or to) ….

Robert Emmons has conducted research funded by the National Institute of Health on gratitude. His research concludes, among other things, that grateful people reported higher levels of positive emotions and lower levels of depression and stress.

Throughout this journey, I’ll be asking you to write things down or practice the exercises I present. You might even want to start a conspiracy journal--your own private account of what’s going on for you, how the ideas in the book are affecting you, how you would have said something more effectively, how an idea might be inspiring you to act or change a way of thinking.

While the journey will likely be more deeply textured and more fully experienced if you engage in the activities I suggest, you can do this experience any way you choose. It’s your book; it’s your moment; it’s your life.

I would also like you to do something else for yourself. Too often in our busy, harried lives, we forget how to care for ourselves, and then we forget to care for ourselves. I would like you to spend a day this week writing down everything that you do for yourself that gives you pleasure, helps you relax, reduces your stress, makes you feel proud, gives you satisfaction, and so on. It could be work outs, walks, paying some bill that’s nagging at you. Listening to that piece of music you love so much. Making a call that was weighing on your mind, reaching out to someone you want to know, or someone you miss, getting that massage or pedicure, whatever “floats your boat.”

And remember your gratitude list.

It is gratitude that enables us to receive and it is gratitude that motivates us to return the goodness that we have been given. In short, it is gratitude that enables us to be fully human. Robert Emmons

There are only two ways to live your life. One is as though nothing is a miracle. The other is as though everything is a miracle.

Albert Einstein

More Gratitude: I am grateful to Ed for teaching me to read and not really wanting to set me on fire. Grateful for my cousins Marilyn, Jeanie, Meem, Annie, and Faye for educating me about the feminine in the universe. I’m grateful for Jimmy Z., Ronnie B., and Michael G. for their friendship so many years ago, and to Jenkins for helping me on the path to understand my racism. I’m grateful to Rick for helping me make peace with water and claim my name. I’m grateful for Mary Ann and Carla for bringing their love into our family. I’m grateful to Marlo for bringing her love and her family into my life. I’m grateful to Emma Goldman and Tom Paine for their inspiration. I’m grateful for militant non-violent revolutionaries every-where. I’m grateful for the word energy of Alice Walker, Marge Piercy, and John Stoltenberg. I’m grateful for rich dark creamy chocolate, fresh strawberries, and ripe bananas….