How do we blossom? this is the question and it is, thankfully, easy to answer. The first step is to make sure we get enough light!

Balance the light and the dark in your life.       If you live in a slum, in a situation of abuse, or are isolated and alone, then there is already a lot of dark in your life.  You need more light! If your life is dark, heavy or hard you need to balance the dark with light each day, even though you may not feel like it and it may not make sense to you.

The truth is that when life is hard we need to focus more on the light, not LESS. You want to put your focus on increasing your enjoyment, having some light each day so you can balance out the darkness that you  know only too well.

7 KEYS TO FINDING MORE LIGHT!

1. Recognize your Need:

If you are the one living in an urban welfare project then you need that one small dandelion blossom coming up through the pavement. Be sure to pick it! Put it in a paper cup on your window sill and enjoy its beauty. That one flower is as important to bringing beauty to your life as a full rose garden may be to another.

2. Indulge Yourself:

Your task is to find what can give you joy and focus on it! IF a 50c cone from MacDonald’s gives you joy then for goodness sakes have one! A 50c jolt of pleasure is a bargain! If you love books then give yourself an afternoon at the public library. Indulge the part of you that knows that the light in your life is strengthened by enjoyment and this balances the darkness.

3. Honour the Small Things that Gift You:

Find the small things that CAN lift you and do them. Take yourself the park and sit against a tree or watch the ducks instead of doing the vacuuming.

4. Prioritize your Wellbeing:

The task of balancing the dark in your life with light and joy is INFINITELY more important than the dusting.

 More ideas…

A cup of hot coffee on the back stoop as the sun comes through the clouds can remind you that YOU are important in this world. The sun shines just as strongly for you as for anyone! Don’t overlook the joy of cheap stuff, the free and the almost-free. Give yourself a jaunt to local garage sales, sidewalk throw-outs and thrift shops. Children can help you remember this. Give a child a cart and an hour on a neighbourhood-throw-out day and he or she will return with it piled high with materials for a spaceship, cubby house and secret underground tunnel!

5. Hold to your Own Dignity:

There is great honor in facing ones’ life situation AS IT IS and working within that reality to give yourself dignity. Bless and expand your life, no matter how hard. A life of poverty with integrity is infinitely better than one that is based on greed, arrogance and cruelty to others, rich or poor. Remember to honor and bless your life as it is and, if it is hard, remember that you must balance it daily by adding light and small pleasures.

Focus every day on what gives you JOY so you can keep doing what you need to do and can take the next step for today. Strengthening yourself so that you can take the next step is your most important task. FIND what lifts your spirits and gives you hope and be sure that you go for that; indulge and enjoy.

No matter your situation, there will be things that can give you pleasure.   Don’t fall into the trap of thinking you can have no light or joy unless you are very wealthy because then you are supporting a system of thinking and behaving that leaves you in despair and depression.

Your life is of as much value as anyone else’s! Walk with dignity! Be sure to have as many hours on a picnic rug reading a library book, or sitting in the sunshine with a sandwich, or looking at the flowers and trees, or rubbing your feet, or putting freshly washed sheets on your bed….. as you need to feel a sense of joy today.

6. Keep Hope Alive:

John Keats said, “A thing of beauty is a joy forever.” Find small relics of beauty and bring them into your home so that you can enjoy beauty and begin to focus upon it as a central part of life. A colourful mug, a secondhand shawl that can grace your wall, a bird feeder…..

Let your child help you. Children are experts in finding the beauty in things. A child knows that a seedling in a pot brings delight each day because it is living and transforming before our eyes; that a bird feeder brings other life to your door.

Your child knows the value of inanimate things as well. Observe how your child treasures the bolt he found beside the drain, the long stick with a knot in the middle, the strangely shaped stone. Children know there is treasure everywhere. Our adult eyes get jaded and we cannot see it anymore. Let your child’s eyes help to re-open your own.

7. Learn to Make Something Out of Nothing:

Of course there are a billion variations of the “simple, free life pleasures.” This is just a small sample list. You are your own genius and I suggest you go and find your own. Mud between your toes? Planting seeds in a window planter or a pot? Eating a spoonful of warm honey and peanut butter?

One of the advantages of living in the over-consuming developed world is that you can ALWAYS, ALWAYS, ALWAYS find a 50c bargain that lifts your hopes and lets you dream a little. 50c of pure pleasure is waiting for you somewhere so go looking. In the process you will be learning to make something out of nothing. You will be learning that pleasure doesn’t have to be expensive and that you can always find enjoyment.

Learning  to make something out of nothing will strengthen your sense of autonomy, power, hope and resourcefulness!

Balance the dark. Just for today YOU can be peaceful, happy and lighter.