Liberating Yourself, or ‘how to thank a dead buffalo’

A lot of attention gets paid to Gratitude, especially as it concerns attracting more of what you (should?) want to yourself. For some of us, it can get impressed on us to such an extent that if we’re not actively entertaining positive, abundant thoughts at every given moment, we might mentally beat ourselves up for it, due to a feeling that we’re doing ourselves (and the machine that is the Law of Attraction movement) a grievous disservice. Even with years and years of devoted meditative training or other mental conditioning, our minds can get the better of the best of us.

 
What to do?

Start giving gratitude to what you do have an abundance of: thank every one of your mind’s mental machinations. As an example, say “thank you” to every thought that arises where you tell yourself that you’re ‘less than’ or otherwise not clever, good, funny, or attractive enough. Say thank you to feelings of dissatisfaction with your life or relationships, to any situation that typically sets you to gnashing your teeth. Give attention to every adverse emotion, regardless of whether it seems mentally justifiable or not.

Rather than think your way through this practice with preconceived expectations or demands, ask Buffalo to help you in your offerings of gratitude, and be open to and enjoy every experience, and every moment. even – or perhaps, ‘especially’ – those that would typically get you ‘fired up’! Imagine for a moment that every negative thought or impulse you have has a negative entity associated with it, influencing it, and thank them, too!

If need be at first, all in good fun, say it sarcastically. For instance, offer a jolly “thank you” to the self-abusive emotion that gets aroused, should you berate yourself for not getting out of bed and to your ‘obligations’ quickly enough. Say thank you to the entity stirring up feelings of you not being superhuman enough to get everything you want done in the world done.

Don’t worry that this act of giving what sounds like gratitude to something you’d want less of might actually bring more of it to you, that you’ll be inundated with more of the particular experience that seemed to cause the negative emotion your thoughts had connected to in the first place. Don’t worry either that you’re putting responsibility for your emotions outside of yourself. As interconnected and expansive as you actually are, these other entities have been a part of your extended being, and a necessary part of your soul’s evolution (not to mention how you’ve been necessary for theirs). 

What’ll happen is – for one thing – you’ll start to realize the extent of the negative crap influencing and limiting you. Secondly (and better than that), though, you’ll introduce a different – ‘for the fun of it’ – attitude to those emotions and energies, and thus transform them; by not giving them the same old power, they’ll have none. And thirdly and so on, well, I don’t want to spoil the plot, so you let me know what happens for you from there.

While the constraints of collective conditioning might be insisting that your thoughts aren’t affecting anything outside of your own cranial space, in truth, you’re playing an actual, active and essential role in uplifting the planet.

If you feel unsettled through this process, I can certainly relate. On a soul level, what’s happening is pretty much commonplace for you, and on an earthplane level, well, I can in all faith assure you that you’ll be adjusted to your ‘new normal’ very soon.

Blessings and Love,

~Black Feather

(incidentally, the Bison in the photo isn’t dead; it’s just having a good roll in the dirt)