Being Conscious of our Blessings.

 

Many of the questions we ask ourselves, others and our personal versions of God come from our desire to find meaning in our lives. Why suffering? Why prejudice? Why judgement? Why some and not others?

These questions often come from a perception that we, or others, have failed in some way. We have this image in our minds about what things ‘should’ look like and when they don’t, we ask them from a place of despair and longing.

As long as we do this the answers we receive involve such things as sacrifice, suffering, martyrdom and/or their creation via control, elimination and taking power from those we identify as the causes of our problems. These ‘answers’ manifest in many ways at many levels.

I was once advised to count my blessings as a way to begin understanding life and its struggles. When I received this advice I was somewhat resentful of what I felt was a judgement or assumption that I didn’t already do this! After all, I had noticed that others were without shelter or food where I was well fed and comfortable. I knew how fortunate I was to be raised with love in a country outside of a warzone. I was aware of my blessings – wasn’t I?

However, I could certainly see there was much in my life I counted as burdens. So I began to consciously ‘count my blessings’.

As time progressed I began to see that ‘blessings’ in people’s lives were relevant, and things I took for granted – to smell a flower, for example, were a rare and coveted joy for some people in whose ravaged environments a flower was rarely seen let alone available to smell. What I began to understand was that blessings are available to All.

Our blessings are symbols of unconditional love which come into our lives when our hearts are open. We do not go and get them. To compare blessings, to hold our own as being more fortunate or luckier or to feel privileged and to feel guilty about it, or prideful of it, is to devalue the symbol. To feel   ‘hard done by’ when we believe others don’t deserve their blessings and ours are worth less – or more – is to miss the point completely. It is to devalue Unconditional Love itself!

What we are tempted to do is equate a blessing with getting something we think we want whereas a blessing is recognition of something we already have! The more we see and count the more our hearts open to the divinity within us and the more we feel gratitude, love and compassion. This brings more awareness of more blessings.  This is why some who seemingly ‘have it all’ are miserable, fearful, miserly and controlling, while others, even in the midst of trials, are positive, optimistic and inspiring. Alternatively, some who ‘have it all’ are generous and expansive while some ‘have nots’ are angry and poisonous.

When we ‘want’ (as in covet) something, we are focussed on not having it. Then when we ‘get’ it, whether by fair means or foul, we are focussed on keeping it. It becomes the millstone around our neck. (We didn’t ‘get it’ at all!) If we didn’t get what we were after, we blame or judge our ‘innate evil’, others or karma or the devil or anything other than take responsibility for turning a blind eye to the blessing we actually are.

We do not need to ‘go and get’, or ‘fight’ for what we want if what we want is to share our blessings. We simply build our list of blessings as they arise in our minds and our dreams are given to us. We are inspired by the blessing of ideas which come to us and take forward action. If a decision we make seems disastrous we count it as a blessing of lesson and step forward with plan B. To count blessings is to feel gratitude for everything that shows up in our lives and use it as inspiration to step forward into our dream. It is only our fear which might stop us taking that action. So love that, too. Count that as the blessing that allows us to understand what Love does NOT feel like. Embrace it and it will transform into courage and then into joy. Knowing this brings gratitude for the blessing of fear. Fancy that!

(The biggest fear many of us face is death. We do all possible to avoid contemplating it and when it stares us in the face we turn away. Count this too. Death is the reason we know life. Egoistic beliefs and fears are what allow us to know our blessings. Love them – to death! ‘Death has no sting’. It merely heralds a transformation of energy. So IS the death of egoistic beliefs.)