As I’ve already noted, trials of motherhood are within the normal range of experience. And yet, the unpleasantness still stings. I have been in my own little cocoon lately, fortifying myself after a couple years of serious emotional strain.

I am in the midst of reconstituting myself and it is a slow and steady sort of process. There are so many things within to tend to; memories, present challenges, work choices, familial relations. And of course, it all connects and reflects: me. Me has been in serious trouble. It’s funny how that happens. How in the midst of so much good there can be a true crisis of self. How it can go undetected by most everyone. And even if it is detected, no one can really do anything about it. It can be contained for a period. But then at a certain point, something has to give. Or in my particular case, receive. These days, I am constantly shifting my focus toward all that is rather than all that is not. This usually comes quite naturally to me, but I traveled down a deep dark hole a while back and so very much like the little sprouts in my garden, I’m reaching upward toward the light.

So I’m focusing on the positive these days, as best I can. To clean out all the negativity does take a while. The habit of negative thinking takes time to shake off completely. And while I do put a tremendous amount of faith in positive thinking and the far reaching implications, I see all around me the results of my recent period of negativity. Which adds some challenge to the whole endeavor; it is so easy to see all that and retreat back down into the hole.

I set up this space in the midst of my challenges. I set it up with the express purpose of consistently figuring my way back to positivity. I have enjoyed many spans of relief thanks to my efforts. When I read this post I recognize a lot of my own frustrations and as is often the case, I’m compelled to add something to the virtual mix. In this quagmire of negativity which I so often find myself these days, it is easy to fall into the futile exercise of making comparisons. When I do this, I remind myself that there is no reality whatsoever in comparison when it comes to us humans and our lives. Our minds create comparison and honestly it seems to me to be a complete waste of effort. (Like so much of what our minds do when we are stuck out of alignment with ourselves. It seems that the mind so easily plays the role of rooting us deeper into negativity which is a self perpetuating exercise, hence my current ascent out of a very deep hole.)

Which brings me to my point about accentuating the positive. Blogs are good for that. There is a particular time and space around a cyber space which makes it ideal for coming around to what is good. And leaving it at that. And that is great for each and every one of us. And yet, there is the flip side: when we are in a hole, it’s so easy to look on at others’ positivity accentuating spaces, and fall into the trap of comparison which just buries us deeper down into our own holes.

But then, all of life is really like that isn’t it? There is always the choice to be made between being sad and happy (or some gradation of either). Put whatever spin on it you want, choose whatever words you like best. The very words we use can be liberating or condemning by the same token of the point that I’m making. This is the very basic fact of our material existence. To be one-sided is to be incomplete. We are whole only when we are in line, body and soul. And when we are in line, we see at once the duality and the completeness. We see that none of it really matters, and yet every little detail does. But we see it all from a field of love.

Accentuating the positive is simply a mental trick along the way to the field of love which at once surrounds us and is kept from us by our very selves. This trick is by the design of our very make up. We are reflected in our feelings and guided by our minds. For whatever our soul calls us to do, we are still here in these bodies, making the best of it in our limited ways.

Here are the three books that have been helping me with my current project of self care:

Transforming the Nature of Health by Marcey Shapiro

The Astonishing Power of Emotions by Abraham-Hicks

Spiritual Economics by Eric Butterworth

And here’s the quote that hangs over my desk to remind me often of what I know in my heart of hearts to be true:

If you are distressed by anything external, the pain is not due to the thing itself but your own estimate of it; and this you have the power to revoke at any moment. –Marcus Aurelius

And there’s one more thing.  I live in a place revered for the good weather.  And boy has the sunshine been a blessing in the past few months.  There have been so many days when I was so down and yet, I could be bathed in sunshine.  I was grateful every time.  Regardless of circumstance, there is always something good to focus on, in my case it’s been the weather.  So here’s to opening our eyes to the goodness that surrounds us in every possible way at every given moment.