The world is really a beautiful amazing place and our lives are actually filled with moments and experiences of fulfillment and satisfaction. Yet we hardly ever allow ourselves to feel them. Our minds push us ever onward to the next thing never stopping to savior the moment.
What does it take for us to be satisfied? Where does the constant restlessness and striving come from? Certainly we live in a culture that asks us to keep wanting: the bigger house, the newer car and so much more. Perhaps some of the lack of satisfaction stems from our soul's longing for a more authentic life, one that honors and allows for the expression of our uniqueness.
Still we can learn a lot from being satisfied in each moment and that can help us identify what brings us happiness and joy on a deeper level. Take a deep breath and notice everything about this moment. No matter what is going on in our lives in each moment everything is usually okay. It's when we run ahead of ourselves and anticipate a future based on our past that anxiety and doubt creep in.
Being satisfied is especially important when it comes to engaging our creativity. We need to learn that it's enough that we show up during the day to play with a creative project or idea even if only for fifteen or twenty minutes rather than thinking we should have worked for two hours. Then be satisfied by what you learned from whatever time you spent. Young children are good reminders of how to do this. They are just happy to be absorbed in the play and hold no attached to outcome. Adopting this attitude during the process of creating can really help our creativity flourish and allow us to feel more satisfied with our lives as a whole.
I've begun a daily practice of noticing moments of satisfaction. It can be eating an artichoke which is one of my favorite food experiences. It can be looking out the window and catching the streaks of pink, orange and red in the sunset sky and stopping to breath the beauty in. It can be working on a draft of a poem with gratitude that the muse joined me in the work. As we cultivate a sense of fulfillment we actually find more to be satisfied by.