Seeking the truth & authenticity

I wanted to write something here about truth & authenticity, and I will start with the concept of gratitude. The idea of practicing gratitude used to make me feel uncomfortable. Part of this was because I had associated it with an area of spirituality that I had considered to be a bit fake. I felt as though there were a lot of people who would paint over their pain and darker side of their nature with an inauthentic positivity, pretending to be all grateful when deep inside they felt resentful and bitter. I put it in the same group as positive affirmations. I was so determined to know the truth about things that I wanted to let go of anything that felt forced, in order to see what was really underneath. Was this universe created from love, made from love, as many philosophies and religions suggest, or was it evil...I was willing to take that risk.

I am not sure how long this period lasted for, but I remember experiencing feelings of apathy and getting to really understand why people are driven to commit suicide. I never wanted to die, but I experienced feelings that even though there was such beauty in the world, it was meaningless and grey, nothing mattered and I felt a sense of dull emptiness.

I have learnt through experience and practice that the only way to discover the truth is to allow everything in, see what is temporary and what remains when everything else leaves. The silent meditation Vipassana retreat helped with this considerably as we had to sit still and silent for almost 11 hours per day, for 10 days. Whatever we felt, thought and experienced had to be sat with, allowed, not rejected, not attached to. We had to remain still and neutral observers of our inner world. Because I had learnt this practice, and experienced what is underneath all the emotion, thought and physical discomfort, I trusted enough to allow the darker feelings, darker thoughts and darker experiences to enter my reality, wanting to learn more about them.

Gratitude for me is something that arrives naturally. I feel very drawn to allowing and accepting my reality as it is. I know that this is not easy for most people, because it is certainly not always easy for me, but for some reason it feels right. I see now that being grateful for the things that are in our life and writing gratitude journals are a really beneficial way of reminding us that not everything is as bleak as our minds will suggest, and sometimes our mind needs to be taken control of in this way, it did take me a while to see that. My issue I suppose is if that is done whilst ignoring and/or suppressing our darker nature, acting as if everything is love and light without accepting that there is another aspect to this particular reality which is not aligned with life moving forwards, but rather a force that appears to be in opposition to that. This force seems to be something that can be transcended through practice of awareness and sensitivity to the subtle realms of life, but it still exists in the reality of the mind of most people, and therefore requires a level of acknowledgment, accepting and understanding in order to integrate and not have it control our personality and behaviours.