The Onset of Winter of the Spirit

The journey seemed to step up a notch once I arrived in Thailand. Facing so many changes, so many challenges, my self esteem could only go one of two ways! My greatest challenge was money to live on. I had had to borrow money from a friend to get here and survive for the first few months. I struggled to set up a greetings card business under the Sanitara brand which was created during a meditation here in Thailand. That business has had stops and starts throughout the two-year period due to a lack of funds to get it off the ground, fund product development and find sales channels. However, on the positive side, it now has a comprehensive portfolio of cards designed to "lift the spirit", some designs of which called upon me to give up old prejudice about who I was and rise above them to produce simple but attractive designs consistent with the wording.

The Onset of Winter of the Spirit

It is as if the forthcoming winter and the imminent drying up of money have conspired to bring my usual positive mind to ground. The resultant effect on my body and spirit has been to lower my energy considerably (causing a cold and a multitude of other minor discomforts) and to obscure the signals from within, the source that normally lights my every step. With a heavy heart I let fear crush my otherwise strong spirit and, in so doing, everything is agonising. No wonder then that my body has become a tainted canvas spotted with bruises and cracks that betray the pain within. In these dark days, old familiar doubts are resurrected, questioning my ability to “prove my worth” or even to provide a basic living for myself.

On moving to a new home with my new partner, I allow these now fermented doubts to surface, with tears of humiliation and apprehension. Purchases of basic needs serve only to deepen the pain and self pity that are normally alien in my freshly restored heart. Yet these thoughts, these doubts, these fears are no more real now that when first they were created by a far younger me lacking the wisdom to distinguish truth from illusion. Can it really be that I am so worthless that I cannot survive? Or rather, better I see the folly in such dark fears and, reassured by the recognition of the illusion, I take action in the belief that if I can rise above myself and my dark nightmares I can create whatever I want for myself in the fullness of time. Guided by the light to this re-awakened truth, I set about a plan of action for short-term survival and long term abundance. Or as the light within me said: be in action.

And within 24 hours of this shift in perspective, money for the reality I choose to create (a trip to Bangkok by plane, not bus, and staying in my usual 5-star hotel) came to me out of the blue when an old business associate offered me commission on work undertaken for a client I introduced to him. In fact, he went further and added more in gratitude for my help in setting up his business some years ago. In trust and action, so I create my reality, a reality that includes abundance.