What is contentment?

What is contentment? What does contentment feel like in my body? ...in my heart? What words fill my mind when I'm feeling content? Where does contentment come from? And...How do I combine it with my everyday activities? These are the questions I’ve been resonating with lately and taking into my reiki journeys. We live in a culture that is constantly striving for more- “be more so you can do more so you can produce more so you can buy more”. Sometimes it just feels like an insatiable “more, more, more”, and I find myself wondering, “When is it enough?”I have a relatively happy life with a lot of blessings.  I enjoy balancing my family life as a wife and mother with my privately owned business as an astrologer and a reiki practitioner.  I was recently feeling an incredible sense of lack mostly from the level of demands being placed upon me.  Some of those demands were coming from my own self-motivation and expectations, and there were some that felt rooted in the insanely, competitive world of online marketing.  My lack of contentment with the way I was feeling is what led me into this inquiry. That’s usually how it works for me. I’ll experience some sense of lack or “not-enough-ness”. It doesn’t feel very good and I throw myself into seeking resolution as way of returning to wholeness.I always go within for the answers.  I often find that the best way to transform anything is to enter into it. So....I take the questions, concerns and unrest into a reiki journey or reiki meditation.  The one thing that reiki has taught me over and over again is that my answers are within me and that they are valid. With that in mind, I enter into my reiki journey state holding a question, concept, or quality on my heart or in my mind. It is usually something I’m curious about or resonating with. Sometimes it is something I just want to understand better and explore further inside of my own consciousness so that something inside of me changes. I don't go looking for the topics...they are usually shown to me through something I am experiencing and then I recognize that this is an opportunity for exploration and learning. There are certain things I always explore. For example, I explore how the quality or question shows up in

• my body

• my heart

• my mind

• my actions

• ...and most of all my life.

I am essentially approaching it from a wholistic perspective, and inviting whole-body listening into the exploration.Here are some questions/concepts I’ve worked with in the past and return to when they are calling me.

• Devotion- What is devotion? What am I devoted to? How do I know I’m devoted to something?  Where does devotion come from?

• SoHam- meaning “I am that”. Seeing life as a mirror of my own consciousness.

• Worth- What is worth? How do I know I’m worthy? Where do feelings of worth come from? Is worth an internal experience or an external experience?

• Appreciation- What is appreciation? What does it feel like to appreciate things? Where does appreciation come from?

It's been fascinating to see that time and time again the answers that come have the common thread of being something that already exists within me....as if to remind me, "I am that which I am seeking." It is just a matter of knowing where to look.Or with the example of contentment, “I am enough as I am.” is the answer that has been resonating through my heart and my mind.  It has been a respite of sorts to rest in this mantra.I encourage you to enter your own explorations around the things that are calling you.  I usually spend a week or two with one quality, but not always... I really listen to see when I feel complete with the exploration.  I've been known to spend an entire moon cycle working with one particular question or a series of questions related to the same topic.Journal, write, paint, create from your exploration.  Life is a beautiful mystery for us to explore and cherish.  Take the time.  Dive in.Many Blessings,Ally