I asked "what is gratitude?" and laughed at myself!!

I love being alive Lol! Sometimes it's a hard slog...and sometimes it's just ridiculous fun!

Identity can get in the way of anything and everything - even gratitude practice!

Gratitude is so powerful. It saved my life as an alcoholic, and especially as an anger addict. It helped me reframe everything around me as a blessing. Having a roof, food, my dog, kids, clothing, a warm and clean place to sleep...and the hard feelings too - loneliness, confusion, weakness, rage...even those are blessings, vehicles for the work of becoming free from identity - the yoga of becoming free.

For a few days I have shifted to feeling flat, disconnected from the feelings that come with gratitude - security, safety, connection, ease.

I thought perhaps I was too focused on material things - I am grateful for a roof, for doggie, for my children, for food, etc - perhaps that's no longer an effective way to connect with myself and find safety?

Perhaps the feelings and energies are what I should focus on rather than the things? I thried this...."I am grateful that I feel safe in my apartment...that I know it is there for me...that I have love for doggie...that i desire to take care of him... that the movement of energy from my work feels like momentum all around me - earning, inspiration, connection, curiosity....grateful for flow and... the rush..."

At that's when I noticed...these feelings, they are not separate from the things themselves...I have felt flat in my practice...I had been focusing only on the things and not the energies and experience of them.

And that caused me to see clearly - how my identity was interfering with the practioce. I want to be someone who's connected to Spirit - I don't want to be someone who is focused on things, I want to be someone who's focused on energy, experience, feelings! I have been holding so tightly to identifiong as a person who is spiritual and not material that this was all I could see!

Once I let that go there was clear space. To allow the experience to be whatever it is. And that will feel different day to day, sometimes more or less connected...perhaps that's good stuff to work with in the yoga of reconnecting...but as long as I have the thought or feeling, even a little "I am someone who connects with Sprit. I am someone who clears my channel. I do not focus on the material, far far from it. I have much to teach." It's like noise that keeps me from seeing the truth - what's here is good. Or good enough, or enough. Could it be perfect?

Wait, here's something else...Why am I stuck on these words?

This is just more stuff for more yoga.

Stripping away, dissolving dissolving...