And the Winner is...

And the Winner is...

How do I celebrate? What makes me commemorate? Why do I feast? How do I revel?

A while back one of my dear friends started posting a list of things she appreciated each day. I loved seeing her lists and fun comments. She kept it up through some really serious stuff in her life, and talked about what a difference it made.

She’s so right.

So, the question is, how do I celebrate? When we celebrate, it’s like we are having an appreciation party. We appreciate the amazing things, events, or people in our lives. As I have been practicing appreciating more, I find that I feel surrounded by luxury, I revel in my activities, I feel good about the people I surround myself with.

The more fun I have celebrating, in big ways and little, the easier it is for me to remember to celebrate. The more I celebrate the circumstances of my life, the easier it is for me to feel like I can be celebrated, too.

For some of us, this is really easy. For others, it’s challenging. We find ourselves feeling resentful of others being honored, finding reasons why we think they do not deserve it. We can get focused on them, and forget that we are responsible for our feelings. When we do that, sometimes we are tapping into our feelings of unworthiness. Sometimes we feel like we are invisible, or taken for granted, or that our efforts are discounted.

How am I approved of? How do I approve of me? How do I feel when I feel honored?

Our sense of unworthiness is based on mislearnings. We may find that we were told as children that we didn’t deserve stuff. We may have mislearned that appreciation is capricious. We may have decided that we are unlucky. When we start looking, we can often find our patterns of unworthiness; being passed over for this or that.  Sometimes, identifying those mislearings can be challenging, but we can make a lot of headway by using Creative Questions.

How do I promote myself? What makes me get credit? Why do I own my accomplishments?

When I am in the middle of feeling unworthy, I will discount my own efforts. I will take for granted my own abilities. I will ignore my contributions. I may also have some ideas about how you should be acting, that is, you should be paying attention to what I am doing without me telling you, you should be aware of all my whatevers, you really should.

When I am in the middle of feeling unworthy, I may surround myself with people who agree with me. They will promote my unworthiness for me. Aren’t they wonderful to cooperate with me so well, just they way I want them to, or at least the way my unconscious mind wants them to.

Why do I deserve respect? What makes me honorable? How do I accept appreciation?

Sometimes, we are easily able to feel appreciate in this aspect of our lives, but not in that one. By taking the time time to notice how we think about it, to notice who we blame, or what we are mad or resentful about, we can go a long way to unchoosing unappreciative feelings, and allow our natural state of feeling celebrated come to the fore.

How have I changed from feeling disapproval to feeling honored?

(c) Pam Guthrie 2014 all rights reserved 01222014