It seems that in my neck of the woods, in my entourage, there is a lot of discontentment at the moment. Maybe it’s the change of season and temperature. People are stressed, unhappy, lacking affection, a lover, a companion or just struggling with finding a way to be themselves. In truth I am feeling much the same way but I seem to be handling it better than those around me in some ways, but not every way. Perhaps I am just more used to it. Perhaps it’s my routine of finding ways to be grateful. Perhaps it’s the signs I have around my house that tell me the universe is always giving me the best possible result. Perhaps it’s my ability to consider how bad things could be, because they can always be worse.
In my experience things are never as bad as we tell ourselves.? A friend of mine is in Ireland and took some photos in a forest and posted them on facebook. Someone commented that Ireland wasn’t safe, it has changed and that they carried around a can of mace with them. I am not advocating people to be careless , but what sort of world are we choosing to live in when we expect disaster to befall us in the middle of nowhere with not a soul around?
You see I can watch all the news media and all the people suffering, and I can feel my heart break and fall into helplessness and depression, OR I can remind myself that out of 198 countries only 10 of them are at war. Yes war is awful but only ten out of 198. I can remind myself of the smile of friends. I can remind myself that even if I don’t feel loved the way I want to be loved, I am still loved and I will be missed. I can remind myself that even if it’s raining, the flowers and trees are happy. I can remind myself that seasons are the natural order, we can’t always be up and happy but we can learn to accept the winter the way the rest of nature does.
I can also especially remind myself that others peoples bad reactions, are not my bag of monkeys. I have my own reactions to consider. So when I am feeding the wolf, I make sure it’s the right one, the one that will get me out of bed and into this wonderful adventure called life.
Maybe you just need to sleep, or eat. Take a day off and do nothing. Go for a walk in the woods, and bring a can of mace if you feel you have to, but just take in the trees. Perhaps you need to make contact and reach out and just say how you are feeling. Whatever it is you are doing, make sure it’s the wolf of happiness and gratitude you are feeding and not the one of fear and regret. Life is for living and we are not here to suffer.