The assignments given to choose from were:
- If you could see love as a tangled nest, swamp grass with corn and feather, love braided with fire, how could you better accept love in your life?
- Make up little rhyming ditties to say to yourself when you are feeling negative. For example, pity pot me, I’ll go touch a tree. Or, only wise me is free to be.
- Spend a few minutes listing the good you have in your life and what this does for your spirit.
I am not so good at creating little ditties, I generally say gurl count your blessings. But I do have this song that carol king sang that I just love. It reminds me to press on because as long as I have my relationship with the Creator then everything is going to be ok. It is called Pocket Money by Carol King. I had to look up the lyrics. It’s funny; I used to sing this song in the 1970’s when she first recorded it. It has been one of those songs that I have sung in my head and to myself for almost 30 years now. Not sure what it is about the song that speaks to me. Maybe it is the reminder that it is all about perspective. no matter how bad I think things are for me, I know somebody else is going through some thing just as challenging, if not more so then me. And it reminds me of a Buddhist writing that I read once and have never been able to find again L but it goes something like this – if God woke you up this morning then you are blessed, if God did X then you are blessed, if God did Y then you are blessed, but if God did nothing more then wake you up this morning then you are blessed. So my general frame of mind is that if I woke up I am blessed and everything else is gravy.
One of the things that helped me to release the negativity was when I released expectations. When I stopped expecting anyone to do anything, it eliminated so much suffering in my life. it is funny because most of the suffering I have experienced in my life came from when somebody did not do what I expected them to do or did not behave in the way I expected them to behave and then I would get pissed because they didn’t do what I wanted them to do or how I thought they should do it. Or I would get mad because somebody would not do something and then I read something Iyanla Vanzant said once about how when you get mad at someone for not doing something they cannot do that is not love. I was like wow. Where did I get the idea that just because I could do something everybody else could. Or that anybody wanted to do what I wanted them to do. Hmm, sounds like control. So when I stopped that. When I stopped expecting anything from anyone, life became like an ongoing holiday. Everything has become like a blank slate, which is beautiful in and of itself. But then I get to experience these random acts of kindness, which I was not expecting. And it is like opening a gift. So wonderful when you are not expecting anything and then wow it is there. Makes me feel like when I was a little gurl. Made you just want to pull the bow, rip off the paper, and get all excited inside. Wondering if that is how you feel Creator when you see me doing good in the world. When you see me sharing love and positive energy with others, do you have that same feeling of love and joy that I feel when somebody blesses me with a gift of love?
Do I have my moments still – yeah – you know I do – but then I am back to my Buddhist writing and carol king singing pocket money in my head and I know that this too shall pass and it is all going to be okay. No matter what happens it is all going to be ok.
Carol King – Pocket Money
No friends, no dreams, no pocket money
There's a wall around my body, a fence around my kind
Nothing comes to me easily not leastwise peace of mind
Still, I keep movin' tryin' to break on through
I don't know nothin' else to do
Peelin' paint above my head is just another sign
Black clouds in the distance gettin' closer all the time
I just gotta keep movin' tryin' to break on through
I don't know nothin' else to do
Sometimes when I think that things
Are bad as they can be
I see a fella standing
Lower down on the ladder than me
Now I'm alive and kickin'
Dust behind my heel
Long as I got my soul
I'm on the good end of the deal
And I'm gonna keep movin'
Tryin' to break on through
I don't know nothin' else to do
I gotta keep movin'
No friends, no dreams
No pocket money
So I'm gonna keep movin'
No pocket money