The Fountain of Daily Bliss

The Fountain of Daily Bliss

How do I feel when I am alive? What fills me with vim? Why am I vibrant?

You know, every single one of us has being alive in common. We also have being born, so we share that experience, going from liquid to air breathing. What a change that was!

Then we come to the quality of our lives. And that’s where stuff gets interesting. We get our circumstances, and then decide how we are going to go with them.

How do you live your life? Do you see your days as a chore to get through, slogging along in the mire of circumstance, weighted down by responsibility, and drained by the wants and needs of others?

Do you see your days as a string of blessings, opportunities, and challenges, nourished by the milk of human kindness, thriving in contribution to family and community, and growing in spirit and maturity and bliss?

I slide around on that continuum. Most days are toward the bliss end, fewer and fewer at the slogging end.

I will tell you, also, that some days it takes me some thinkin’ to scooch over to the bliss end.

Why do I choose to be happy? Why do I choose to be positive? Why do I choose lighthearted?

Feeling crabby, or grouchy, or a little scared, or anxious; those are familiar feelings to me. They grew up with me, kept me company. Thing is, they are not supportive or nurturing feelings. They chew on my nerves, suck the juice out from my immune system, and otherwise drain me on all fronts.

That means it is in my best interest, when I notice I’m in there, feeling one of those feelings, to break that habit loop. I need to change my thinking. Asking a good Creative Question is the fastest way to do it that I know of.

We all ask creative questions all the time, mostly bad ones. Why is it so hard? Why am I such a loser? How could it get any worse? Why don’t things ever go my way? Why am I so unlucky? A creative question is one with the answer built in to the question.

When we ask creative questions, our subconscious mind goes to work to find answers for us. Each time I ask, why is it so hard, my subconscious comes up with reasons for me.

When we think thoughts, our mind/brain converts the thoughts from thought energy to physical energy, and we read that as emotion. When the emotion is repeated often enough, we have a physical sensation. Depending on the flavor of the emotion, we end up feeling happy, or scared, angry, sad, surprised, contemptuous, or disgusted. Then we put thoughts on top of that, and that complicated soup becomes feelings. Wow.

Asking good Creative Questions shifted all that into a place of light. Where stuff can heal in safety, where topics can be addressed from a resourceful space. Where bliss can be a daily occurrence.

How am I tapped into the fountain of daily bliss?

(c) Pam Guthrie 2013 all rights reserved 11122013

Everyday Bliss

Everyday Bliss

I love being aware. When I am aware, life is a gazillion times more fun.

Before Times, I was so stuck in my stinky thoughts, or so obsessed with my physical misery that the best fun ever could barely penetrate my self-absorption.  Poor me.

Before Times, I thought I was having fun. I couldn’t understand the big deal. Fun wasn’t all that fun. Mostly it was a little distraction from my self-absorbed occupations. At best, I was about 55% there. Drinking, for example,  wasn’t all that fun; by the time I got drunk enough to stop worrying, I was too drunk to remember what I was doing. Jeez.

Now that I have learned how to be aware, well, get back, Hannah! I find myself having fun in the most unlikely places. And the likely ones, too.

I have fun At. The. Dentist. I am quite serious. I have changed from being so terrified of the dentist that I just didn’t go for eight years, to looking forward to my visits. After a car accident, I had to have two teeth extracted and, using Creative Questions and awareness, I had almost no bleeding, no swelling or bruising or pain. They were healed in three days.

That was fun.

So if that sort of thing can be fun, can you imagine how much fun I have just in a regular day? Oh, yeah.

Being aware is one of those remarkable things that happens effortlessly when we relax.

Trying to be aware is like trying to be spiritual. The harder we try, the less we have. So I practice the six rules for qigong:

Don’t Worry. Don’t Intellectualize. Enjoy. Relax. Relax. Relax.

Why is it so easy? Why am I relaxed? Why do I enjoy myself? Why do I love to breathe?

When I soften the tension out from my muscles, my emotions, my mind, and my spirit, I can see that I live in a place of wonder beyond imagining. I don’t need magic mushrooms, or  lysergic acid diethylamide to appreciate it. All I need is to relax into awareness.

When I soften into awareness, I can see your good heart. I appreciate how hard we all work, for so many reasons, to make things better, and I am naturally more patient.

When I soften into awareness, I can see my  own childish behavior and stinky thoughts, and I can gently and lovingly correct them, feeling love and compassion for myself.

When I soften into awareness, bliss is in reach. I can find myself feeling bliss at the song of my little house finches eating breakfast and jibber-jabbering like crazy nuts, or the color of my boxelder maple against the sky, or a tiny snail looking at me. My heart is open, my body relaxed. I have infinite room within to love, to understand, to be.

How have I changed from clenching out the world, to opening to the joy and majesty of it all?

(c) Pam Guthrie 2013 all rights reserved 11022013