Can you greet the worst case scenario as a gift?

This is truly the only way to be happy and free in this life.

Because we are never going to live perfectly organised, everything as it should be lives. No, my friend, life is dirty, messy, hard, difficult and dangerous and that’s just with you and the thoughts in your head. Add in other people and it all goes to a new level of sh!t.

But, if we can see, even the worst of circumstances as good, as a gift, then nothing that happens derails our inner peace. Sure, we may be pulled off balance for a while but when we reassert ‘This is Good,’ we realign and allow things to unfurl without freaking out and trying to control it all.

If you can say, even on the worst of days, ‘This day is my gift, mine to embrace or reject as I choose.’ You will find equilibrium.

It’s easy to find everything we meet as we move through this day wrong. Judge as being bad, poor, frustrating, difficult, harsh, unkind and then get upset and frustrated because it’s not what we want it to be.

But we do have a choice. We can instead decide to find everything in this day to be a joyous challenge for us to explore new ways to have a great experience and find out more about ourselves.

Ever had a bank reject your card? I have. Its a few years ago now and I remember that feeling, actually that mix of feelings so well. It was a toxic stew of fear about how I was going to pay my bills, anger that this had happened, frustration because I felt I wasn’t being paid my worth and so much more.

But if its happened to you recently, what if you could see it as a good thing? After all, not spending money you don’t have on sh!t you don’t really need is a good thing. And if you are experiencing the worst of this country’s failings as a society right now and are hungry, if you’re truly desperate, then please put your pride to one side and ask for help.

Its easy to give aid, to donate, we all love being in the position of being abundant enough in our own circumstances that we can share some of what we have. And it makes us feel good.

But we seem to have learned to hate asking for help. Today, we see it as an admittance of weakness, we seem to think that it says we’ve f*cked things up and need someone else to fix things for us, to rescue us from circumstances of our own making.

I don’t believe that at all, I believe policies brought into our public sphere in the past ten years have systematically stripped our society of the mechanisms used to help and support those in need, and offer people a hand up to get themselves back on their feet.

But this ‘personal responsibility for poverty’ narrative has become very popular in these ten years of Conservative Party rule. Helped along by austerity policies and a rabid right leaning press only too happy to paint pictures of benefit scroungers and dole cheats.

Unfortunately, our subconscious absorbs the dominant culture around us, we get hypnotised just walking around living our lives, reading papers, watching tv, we are in a trance state being programmed all day, every day.

These foreign, invasive thoughts and judgements seep into our subconscious and take root and we start to think its how we think, how we’ve always thought about things. We belief this false narrative we’ve absorbed is our freely chosen belief.

As I said in yesterday’s blog, what I often have to do with clients is ‘Un-Hypnotise‘ them! Yes, exactly that.

I have to excavate all the horrible beliefs and judgements and consideration of ‘normality’ that have been handed down generation to generation, as well as taking apart all the current culture BS.

Here’s what I know to be true. Most human beings are kind, decent, empathetic, generous and willing to help just as much as they are every bit as deserving of help and generosity too. We forget that we deserve to receive. Whether is a simple kind word, a compliment or food and a roof over our head. We deserve kindness.

This unholy, uncharitable ‘me first,’ ‘us vs them’ culture that we’ve been immersed in like a toxic stew makes us forget who we really are. It pushes the human heart’s capacity to see need and love the person who needs, into a lockbox, buried deep down a mineshaft, never to be recovered and opened.

But it is recoverable. Every single one of us is capable of loving kindness and gracious charity. And every single one of us deserves to receive loving kindness and gracious charity when we need it.

Don’t be afraid to give. And equally, if not more so, don’t be afraid to ask for help.

When you ask for help, you are actually giving the most beautiful gift in the whole world to someone, you gift them the opportunity to do good, to lift you up, raise your spirits and give you whatever you need to be able to face the world again.

Times are tough for many people right now. For some its financial, for others it mental or emotional and for some its a spiritual issue that is causing their pain.

There is poverty and lack in all aspects of human existence, just as there is joy and love and plenty in us all too.

When you can, give. When you have need, ask.

Both are part of being human, Both acts will lift you up and feed your soul. Asking definitely requires a lot of courage to show vulnerability and the other requires humility in the act of giving.

Do what you can for others, do what you must for yourself.

Take care of those you love, and I hope allow your love to reach everyone.

Cynthia xx