"I am the Allower of my own Wellbeing"

A natural health newsletter written by Sherry Dell, PhD, CN

Volume 3, Issue 3
February, 2010

Your Spiritual Toolkit

In order to spread upliftment, of course, one must feel pretty darn uplifted themselves.  No sense trying to be something we aren't. In fact, more than that, false upliftment just doesn't work.  Even the least sensitive perceivers among us, can discern the difference.  Fake happiness, fake gratitude, fake love are all visible far out to sea on a stormy night. 

Having said that upliftment is contagious, the question is begged: how do we become uplifted to begin with?  Or put more simply: how do we get feeling good?

This is a largish question, no doubt.  People the world over and across the ages have been working on that one, and maybe you, too, have arrived at your own answers.  If so, please feel free to skip the following.  If you already feel really good, just head out into the world and spread it around.  Hoorah!

If you're like me, and it kind of comes and goes, here's an idea that has helped me.  Build your spiritual toolkit.

I call this a "spiritual" toolkit because the tools that it needs don't generally exist in the physical realm.  These are the tools that you can use to get yourself feeling good. And I call it a "toolkit" because just like your household toolkit, when things are broken or in need of repair, you know that your toolkit is where you have collected all your tools so you'll be able to find them when you need them. 

The tools in your spiritual toolkit are things you have come to learn about yourself over the course of your lifetime; things that make you feel healthy, happy, centered, at peace, connected, grounded, joyful, radiant, vibrant, free, glorious.  Please pick your own words.  But they all mean: feeling good.

For many people, these spiritual tools never actually made it into their toolkit.  In other words, they may have a vague sense of a list of things, but they have never been fully identified, captured, remembered, brought all the way to consciousness, and most importantly, never used on a regular basis.

To give you an example, let me show you some of my own toolkit.  These are things that took me many, many years to identify; even more years to start practicing regularly, and ironically, were already in my toolkit from my earliest childhood years.

       1)As much daily time in nature as possible, walking, watching, listening, 2)constant appreciation, 3)dancing, 4)singing, 5)laughing, 6)napping, sleeping, resting, relaxing, 7)time spent near, or preferably in, the water, 8)creating (cooking, writing, beading, photography, sewing, etc.), 9)playing with the dogs.

O   On the days when I practice these, my very own tools of upliftment, I feel really darn good.  When I practice them day after day for many days in a row, I can become saturated in pure delight.  

C   Consider building your own toolkit.  All it really takes is a piece of paper and a pencil and some time to reflect on what you have loved most in your lifetime.  Just the act of making the list is likely to get you feeling pretty darn good.  And good on ya!

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Human behavior is contagious.  We don’t commonly think about it that way, but contagion is perhaps a more accurate label for many other labels that we do use commonly.  Culture.  Fashion.  Politics.  Just to name a few.  If you think about it, even the laws we enact are the result of the current style of our contagious thinking.  We humans influence each other in significant ways.  It’s not a bad thing; just a fact of human nature.

We can all think of contagious behaviors.  Have you ever been in a large group setting and someone yawns?  It doesn’t take long before that yawn has passed around the whole group like a wave.  That’s because breathing is contagious.  Even reading that last sentence is likely to cause you to take a nice deep breath.

And smiling is contagious.  And laughing.  And thought is especially contagious.  Lifestyle in general is contagious;  including the way we eat, drink, exercise, manage stress, rest, love, play.  In this way, we all have an enormous power to influence each other’s overall health and wellbeing. 

Of course human contagiousness can be either positive or negative in its influence on us.  And sometimes both.  Witness long-held grudges, fear, rage, war.

But I woke up this morning with a bolt of thought that upliftment is also contagious.  Feeling good is contagious.  Appreciation and gratitude are contagious.  Kindness is contagious.  Enthusiasm and passion are contagious. 

My little town of Hood River, Oregon is itself contagious in a very positive way.  It is a place where people are outdoors as much as possible, smiling, laughing, and basking in the incredible beauty of the Columbia River Gorge.  People look you in the eye when you pass on the street and are quick to stop and chat, to uplift each other.

Stories are especially good vehicles for contagious upliftment.  Here’s one of my favorites that I tell all the time and that you have probably already heard.  But it bears repeating.  It is based on an essay by Loren Eisley called “The Star Thrower.”  My version goes like this:

This story's message of how each of us make our own very special difference in the web of things is always very uplifting to me.  Here's hoping the feeling is contagious.