How grateful I feel for the warm weather! Finally! Though I chuckle to myself that, in a few short months, we'll all be complaining that it's been too warm for too long and "when will that cooler fall air finally arrive"?

Observing my dampening mood over these last few gasping breaths of winter, I've noted in myself that all too human trait of dissatisfaction. No matter how well things are going or how good life is, I, as a bonafide Homo Sapien, remain painfully unfulfilled.  Always looking for the thing that will make the world more aligned to my liking. Certain that there is a way to always be comfortable and why can't I just get there already?

This, naturally, leads to striving and resistance as I wish that things might be other than they are.

Perhaps there is satisfaction, but from a less likely source than we might expect? It's good to have a back-up plan when the external world refuses to be cajoled into the shape of what we believe happiness to be.

As we learn to understand, tolerate and release a need to control our environment, we see that we are building resilience. In this way, when we don't get the job, our relationship fails, or winter holds on far too long, we are not thrown so far off balance. 

Instead, we learn to expect that the world (and the weather) will not conform to our desires, needs and whims, and we can gain satisfaction in the knowledge that we are not as thrown off by inevitable uncertainty.

This month, Stephanie shows us how she took a potentially perilous situation and found in it deep joy and gratitude.  You'll find her article below.

In joy and compassion (and less complaining),