Appreciating the ornery ones!

Be grateful and count your blessings!

Have you heard this before? I grew up with this piece of crap and let me tell you it is one of the most self limiting beliefs you can ever practice.

So stick your fingers down your throat and bring this up and out of your system right now!

You finished?

Here's a tissue, wipe your mouth and fingers and go forth and tell no one.

If only it was that easy!

So what did this belief do?

The well meaning adult who imparted this bit of rubbish to us meant that we were less than good, less than deserving to begin with.

Therefore no matter how mistreated and ill treated we were, our only job was to say "Yes'em" and "Thank You".

It was their job to treat us with as little respect or regard as possible, and it was our job to respond with the greatest respect and regard for they were our Gods and Goddesses and we were absolutely non-deserving, bothersome little brats.

We had to be grateful that we were meriting some form of physical or mental abuse because, well, it could be worse. So be grateful damit and count your blessings.

The thing that causes this universe to expand and us to evolve is desire.

Desire that is born when we live a contrasting experience.

The trick here is to run with the desire part and leave out the rest. 
This is what seperates those of us who are living extraordinary lives from those who are living lives of quiet desperation.

When I was growing up I had much contrast and I could not complain to a single soul because they were all Gods and Goddesses who said, "Be grateful and count your blessings!"

I was sent to bed without dinner because I couldn't find Botswana on a world map. Be grateful and count your blessings at least you had a bed!

My mother quarralled every single day of my life.

Be grateful and count your blessings at least you have a mother!

My cousin imprinted her teeth on my fleshy forearm.

Be grateful and count your blessings at least you have a cousin!

School is not teaching me anything I am interested in.

Be grateful and count your blessings at least you have a school!

At some level of my being I knew I was born deserving and I was already a blessed being.

It was not something I had to earn. I was born deserving.

So when I heard this coming from these people whom I thought of as Wise and All Knowing, I realized it was I who held the Keys to the Kingdom.

I loved myself and knew that I wanted a different life from the life they were trying to mold me into.

So every single time they fed me that piece of crap "Be grateful and count your blessings." I decided to do so - with my newfound understanding.

I said to myself, " I am grateful for this experience of having to go to bed without dinner, because I would never treat another kid like that.

I would never withhold food as a source of punishment because I was unhappy with myself." This is what it feels like to go to bed hungry when others are feasting one wall away. It was not a feeling I was likely to forget, nor ever impose upon one other.

I counted my blessings too:

I am glad I know differently.

I am glad that this person is showing me how NOT to be.

I am glad that I know about myself and how I want to be.

I am glad that this is creating a new desire for me to have the freedom to live a joyous life, free of the self-loathing all these adults are demonstrating around me.

I want a better life for myself. I want to live happily ever after. I want to be surrounded by love and appreciation. It will be the only currency in my life.

I will have people who are nicer to themselves and to me. I will have people who are uplifting, kind and appreciative like I am, like I was born to be.

Of course I did not use these words back then, but I did have the feelings of what I wanted and that was enough. It is not our words but our feelings that manifests our desires.

Today, I am indeed living happily ever after. I am wealthy in all ways.

My life is mostly blissful and it is as a result from all that contrast I grew up with.

I am appreciative of all the ornery, unhappy, self- loathing people I ever encountered, for they all showed me what I did not want to become and as a result what I did want.

You might be asking how come you lived a similar life and you are not wealthy with well-being.

Could it be that you spent your thoughts resenting them and plotting revenge instead of dreaming of only what you wanted?