When darkness comes, choose gratitude…

As we head into the Holidays, I’m feeling mindful of those who may not be feeling the deep gratitude, love, and connectedness that I feel. The holiday season can be a time of joy but also a time of great stress. The pressure to be exuberant amidst winter’s darkness often leads to a feeling of disconnect for many. What if that perspective were to change?

When we go through hard times, it is so easy to feel like we are fighting with our own lives. Hardship evokes feelings of darkness and we automatically brace ourselves for battle. We become rigid and defensive thinking it makes us stronger and more protected but in reality it blocks us from the solutions we might need and all of the good energy trying to make its way to us. What also don’t realize is that by fighting against this darkness, we sometimes allow ourselves to wallow in victim mode and then we are actually inviting  more of the darkness in. We are giving it energy and deflecting light instead of absorbing it!

When difficulties in our lives arise, we can choose to change our perspective…with gratitude. 

When you are in gratitude, you are celebrating the art of thankfulness. This is an amazing and energizing force! Gratitude is full of light and of the highest energetic frequency. Defensiveness and rigidity are full of shadows and heavy with a much lower frequency. With gratitude in our hearts, even the toughest of times can be overcome so that the light of new possibilities  and fresh perspective can shine through. Remember that light and darkness cannot exist together, because darkness is only the absence of the light.

So when darkness comes, you become the light. When difficulties arise, you become the solution. Actually visualize what it feels like to be in the solution instead of wallowing in the problem. Then allow that feeling to come into you, and become it. As you do, you feel your heart expanding and you become grateful for all of the things that are actually right in your life. You move into gratitude. Gratitude energizes you; it is a state of being which is filled with strength, wisdom and all the courage you need to move through obstacles and hardship in an enlightened, intended way.

As you come face to face with obstacles, instead of listening to the negative chatter or allowing the fear of failure to overtake you, try asking- “teacher, what is my lesson here?”  Maybe the energy of the universe is speaking to you.  Slowing things down so that you can take the time to stop, wait, breathe and listen as the answers come. Everything you need is right there within you. With a loving kindness and an open heart and mind, with gratitude, your obstacles become your guides that will help get you over the mountain…reawakened.