I’ve always been a problem solver. Someone who can see things from multiple angles, and see solutions that other people can’t even imagine. More than a glass half full, more like a ship in the bottle instead of just a single glass.

I have prided myself on my tenacity with working thru until the solution became evident. No matter how dire or insurmountable the problem presented proved to be, I would hold out hope, and apply my vast array of energy towards a solution.

In recent days, I have been provided with a self evident truth that was more than a little humbling. This strength of mine for problem solving is also one of my greatest weaknesses.

How can this be? How can seeking to solve problems be a weakness?

In this great strength is the truth that in seeking to solve problems, I am perpetually seeking problems. Or in more eloquent words, from my teachers, enjoy what is working not what is broken.

This is humbling, and somehow has brought me a tremendous amount of happiness. An ability to be able to breath a little more deeply and express my infinite gratitude for all the things going perfectly, and harmoniously in my life. Particularly at a time when I am inundated with “solutions” to the many things that are not going precisely how I would crave, IE “problems”

I had an old friend visit me yesterday; and as well as the delivery of much craved tea I had requested, she made a comment that somehow made me step back.

She said “You look great”.

It was a simple thing, it shouldn’t have thrown me for a loop. I know I have many many little pebbles in my shoes right now, but I had forgotten to stop and just breath and enjoy all the life I have in me right now. To enjoy the sun on my toes, the wind on my wind chimes, the barking of my pup, the smile on my face.

A second message my teacher presented to me, was “use those things.” This is a little bit more convoluted to explain, but I have all these treasures, things I have gotten for “a rainy day”

Or honestly, things I had gotten with the intention of gifting or sharing with someone in a special circumstance. What this message was for, was a reminder to me, that I should enjoy these things now, and take joy in them for the sake of the joy.

An example of this is some incense I have; that reminded me of my experiences in the temples in India. They smell just like the temples did, and I had been saving them, keeping them with many other things in a box that had dust on the top when I brought it out and burned them today.

Feeling that memory of the day I found these, and the memory that the smell brought to my mind, the day I spent in the temple of Shiva, and the feeling and smell the whole house has now that I have lit them, and enjoyed them. Its a state of bliss.

So I expect I’ll be breaking out the good china, the special dishes and all the other “special day” things I have, because life is truly too short to “save them” … Every day is a day of joy to be enjoyed with all these special things.

Going back to my Milk Oolong and some great tunes, to enjoy more of this incredible beautiful day.

I debated about calling this Entitlement and the lemmings that go bump in the night, being as how the inspiration for this post came at me after an hour of tossing and turning trying to get to sleep and being soundly unable to rest. Headed to bed much earlier than usual tonight, as tomorrow is test day. More about that later, this post has been a marble bouncing around in my brain for some time.

When I was 20, soon to be 21 I spent a winter and spring with my great aunt M. It was an amazing life changing experience. It was when I was first introduced to the Desiderata. It resonated with me then, and many times thru my life it has been a shining beacon of hope in the background, but it also set the groundwork for a revelation I had this year about entitlement.

For the sake of this post, going to use the google definition of entitlement: basically having a right, or basic belief that one is inherently deserving of a particularly privilege or treatment. Over the years of my life, I have given alot of thought and ponderance to that word, and the implications, and ramifications that occur when one has entitlement.

Its also worth discussing for a brief moment the law of attraction or the general conservation of energy. If energy is never destroyed, and like energies attract like energies, entitlement as a mantra or belief system quickly becomes self fulfilling prophecy and self sustaining. This is, once in motion by thought, action, and belief, energies of self, and outside align to be in harmony with this entitlement and make it a self fulfilling thing. That is, by providing the belief, it calls to the thing itself, which strengths the belief, replicates the thing, attracting more of the like and becomes stronger and stronger, much like a tree that once its weathered its first cycle of seasons and developed a strong enough root system, doesn’t really need much else to just keep following the path and growing into a strong pattern of life. In my personal testing, in my life and experiences, this is something I have found to be true.

We all have entitlements, often times they are not always the most readily obvious things to us. At the end of last year, a startling revelation caused me to realize that not all entitlements are inherently positive. There is such a thing as negative entitlements or, self sustaining mantras we may not even recognize as ones we are fertilizing in our gardens of life, mind and thought.

I realized, I had an entitlement that was keeping me obese. I felt, entitled to be recognized by my peers as fat. I had always been fat, it was comfortable. I had a right to be treated as a fat person. To be medically diagnosed as a fat person. To be looked down upon and overlooked as a fat person. For assumptions to be made about what I would eat, drink, and how I would be acting or fitting into clothing, food, places. All of these things, I had expectations for how people would react and how they would treat me, that were neither conscious nor positive, but were my own perceptions of how life was to be, for me, as a fat person. I had an entitlement to be fat.

In the course of my health journey, I somehow in the course of restricting all of my foods, and taking and micromanaging everything going on with my body chose somehow to unconsciously release that entitlement. I would be entitled to be a healthy person. I didn’t realize I had an entitlement to be fat, until suddenly a few months after releasing it, recognized that I suddenly wasn’t really fat anymore. I honestly didn’t realize an entitlement was gone, until suddenly I was fitting into off-the-shelf medium size lounge pants, that I tried on overtop of my existing 2xl yoga pants. My reaction to the size wasn’t the shock or awe my hindsight might have expected, but more a, wow these are not only not tight, but they actually fit kinda nice.

In reflection as I gave away the old clothing that had been hanging off me for some time, I realized it wasn’t until I released that entitlement that my body felt free to shed the weight it had been struggling, with my low healthy caloric intake, to maintain.

Entitlement is a thing that I have used many times in my life. Its my practical application of the law of attraction or “the secret”- as some people tend to profit from….. Seeing it more as a belief of “I am entitled to this thing, and all of the trappings and interactions that occur with this thing”

It’s the small thoughts, and speech that are utilized by my heart, mind and mouth. I found that by claiming consciously the entitlements that I believe I deserve, it frees the universe up to ensure they exist for me.

My current entitlements are health, longevity, prosperity, and peace of mind.

Now with this out of my head, maybe I’ll be able to rest for tonight now, before my CT Scan and Bone scan tomorrow. I realized today that these tests, so soon again are like my quarterly report card of how I am progressing with my healing process. Here is hoping for another A.