Appreciation is such an underrated word. Appreciating what I have, what’s already in my life, changes the energy flow entirely. It’s common to focus on what’s missing. Noticing that’s what you are doing — priceless.
The other night, after writing the piece that started with, “What do you want?” I had to admit that I had a few wants myself. Love how that works … it’s always for me. It’s never just for those who read what I write. It was readily apparent that I could check a couple boxes on my list.
I noticed that I want a human life companion and felt the absence as a sense of lack. The heart wants what it wants. Waking up doesn’t change that one whit. What changes is that I don’t hide — or hide long — from the sensations, the desire. I see it. I feel it. I acknowledge it fully. Hey — there you are. I see you. This one who is the flesh and blood expression of This I am, who is my unique vehicle for experience, has wants.
It’s easy to blow right past the feelings, the sensations and kind of tuck them down deep inside. It’s not just easy, it is habitual. It takes a willingness to stop, a willingness to meet and greet the sensation to break the normal what-seems-comfortable pattern.
After all, why would you want to meet discomfort, to explore the ache, to go deep into what feels like the caverns of failure and camp out? Crazy, eh?
Don’t know about you, but whenever I blow right by, there is a price to pay. It’s not always obvious unless you have been doing the work for a long time, have been taking deep dives into your stuffed stuff, inquiring into what’s in your bag. If you have, if doesn’t take much to see the cost …. in joy, in how life manifests, in health, in creativity.
The want, the desire for a physical being, someone to share my life with exists. When I deepened into the want, accepting it, meeting it, letting it be, the energy shifted from want to have, to all that I have in my life, to all the beautiful beings I call friend: in the ethers, in person, and in places like social media. I began listing off name after name and the energy expanded, opening into a lightness, releasing want’s energy of lack.
The appreciation shifted to little Sophia, my beautiful, funny, exasperating, furry four-legged friend. When I accepted that right now, in this moment, she is my life companion the energy shifted again, deeper still, even more precious than before, bringing tears to my eyes.
I didn’t suddenly get a hunk in the mail. I haven’t fulfilled the dream but I realized that I already have a life companion who makes me laugh — hilariously, sweetly, shake-your-head rolling giggles, who snuggles with me in the evening and kisses my cheek — trying to talk her out of the lips and eyes, who gives me someone to love unconditionally — with a little conditional thrown in, after all she is my teacher and a good one and I, but a lowly student.
Appreciation shifts the inner dialog. It shifts it from lack to abundance, from what’s missing to what’s here now. Even in these pandemic times, when get togethers have gotten up and gone, when meeting someone is rarely in person, when elbow bumps and virtual hugs replace the real thing, we can appreciate what we do have, how life graces us in this moment, and if we do our work, meet our discomfort, when the pandemic ends it will be a way of life. We will have settled into life as it is, into simple being.
There is no appropriate bio for Amaya Gayle. She doesn’t exist other than as an expression of Consciousness Itself. Talking about her in biographical terms is a disservice to the truth and to anyone who might be led to believe in such nonsense. None of us exist, not in the way we think. Ideas spring into words. Words flow onto paper and yet no one writes them. They simply appear fully formed. Looking at her you would swear this is a lie. She’s there after all, but honestly, she’s not. Bios normally wax on about accomplishments and beliefs, happenings in time and space. She has never accomplished anything, has no beliefs and like you was never born and will never die. Engage with Amaya at your own risk. www.amayagayle.com