I caught myself doing something the other day.
I realized I was practicing gratitude as a way of getting something.
Yep. After all these years of knowing better, I still catch myself doing this!
And it got me thinking about how easily we turn practices meant to support us into strategies for getting what we want.
If I practice gratitude, I’ll attract more abundance.
If I meditate, I’ll feel calm.
If I think positive thoughts, good things will happen to me.
And if I think negative thoughts? Well, I’d better watch out because I might manifest something terrible.
Where the hell did we get these ideas?
I know some come from the Law of Attraction. And I think others come from our very human desire to believe that if we do everything right, life will turn out the way we want.
We do this with our health, too.
If I eat organic food, I won’t get sick.
If I exercise, I’ll live longer.
Of course, these practices can support our health and well-being. But none of them comes with a guarantee.
And here’s the catch-22.
We want more money because we believe we don’t have enough. And somewhere along the way, we’ve decided that not having enough means something is wrong with us or our lives.
So we practice gratitude, visualize abundance, and try to feel what it would be like to have all the money we want.
But underneath all that effort is the very feeling we’re trying to escape.
We’re trying to create abundance so we don’t have to feel the lack.
And yet, the whole effort is coming from a place of scarcity.
Which makes me wonder:
What if we stopped treating our lifestyle and spiritual practices as ways to control our reality?
What if, instead of trying to cultivate a better feeling so we can attract what we want, we allowed ourselves to feel what’s already here?
The fear. The inadequacy. The discomfort of not having what we want.
Not to wallow in it. Not to make it go away. Just to be with it.
Because sometimes, when we stop trying to escape a feeling, we discover what we’re actually longing for.
And it might not be money at all.
And what if we simply did these practices because they make our lives better?
I want to exercise because I love feeling strong in my body. Because I’d like to be able to get my ass off the floor when I’m 80.
I want to eat nourishing food because I care about my body and want to give it the best chance of staying healthy, or recovering when illness comes along.
I want to practice gratitude because this world is achingly beautiful. And sometimes that beauty disappears so fleetingly fast.
And I want to meditate because I want to know myself more deeply. Because I want to remember that this body, this life, and everything in it is impermanent, and I have far less control than I’d like to believe.
And maybe, little by little, learn to soften into that knowing instead of fighting it.
And perhaps that’s how we begin creating our lives from a place of love rather than fear.
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