Anchors Aweigh

I'm feeling the love. Thanks for that. That, and a mega-healing-nap yesterday, helped a lot. I'm feeling good today. My kids are around, Eric's home, the sun is out. I cleaned the kitchen windows. Little things that work.

But, mostly this realization: a sure-fire way to get unhappy, quick, is to focus on what you don't have. Reading the Dalai Lama this morning (I know...the cheese! But it helps):

So I think that this kind of excessive desire leads to greed--and exaggerated form of desire, based on overexpectation. And when you reflect upon the excesses of greed, you'll find that it leads an individual to a feeling of frustration, disappointment, a lot of confusion, and a lot of problems. When it comes to dealing with greed, one thing that is quite characteristic is that although it arrives by the desire to obtain something, it is not satisfied by obtaining. Therefore, it becomes sort of limitless, sort of bottomless, and that leads to trouble. One interesting thing about greed is that although the underlying motive is to seek satisfaction, the irony is that even after obtaining the object of your desire, you are still not satisfied. The true antidote of greed is contentment. If you have a strong sense of contentment, it doesn't matter whether you obtain the object or not; either way, you are still content.

Ah. Yes. I don't think it's any accident that since Eric got the new job I've been focusing more on greed, less on contentment. We were released from the financial constraints of him being laid off, and so swung to the other end of the spectrum, focusing on how we would spend the money, what we could get next. And I found myself much less happy than I had been during the weeks we were preparing for the layoff. The depression descends.

Interesting, right? There were many more trips to the thrift store, the shoe store, the bookstore. And much less contentment. There was more listmaking and planning and scheming, and much less meditation, being in the present. More frantic sewing and accumulation. Less breathing, stretching, walking.

So, a shift back to center, now. An anchoring. The clouds part a bit. I choose different thoughts, and the emotions follow, a little. Let's see what happens.