Putting your dissatisfaction to good use

I used to have some mugs that said; “it’s not happiness that makes us grateful, but gratefulness that makes us happy.” I hope that everyone reading this has at least experienced some moments of gratitude about their lives.

Moments where you felt in sync with life, the universe, the people around you and the places you inhabit. Maybe even the work you do. Moments in which you experience that profound sense of gratitude that goes hand in hand with a feeling of belonging and being in the right place. Such a deep experience of gratitude for the rightness of your life can last a fleeting moment, a week or even longer. But inevitably, at some point, dissatisfaction will set in.

In the first few years after my life once again turned topsy-turvy, I was engaged in the process of seeing it from a fresh perspective. At the time I felt deeply connected to this inner sense of gratitude. Which may sound strange in the midst of the chaos of the new and grief for the old. But I felt deeply held and perfectly taken care of. I swore to anyone who would hear that I would never again try to be the boss of my own life, but instead be guided by this deeper higher wisdom that is both Beyond and in me. I can truly say that I would feel a profound sense of gratitude as I sat on my deck listening to the ducks, the geese and the other watery creatures settling down for the night, while feasting my eyes on the beauty of the stars above. And I count myself lucky that it lasted as long as it did.

Because inevitably, to turn the expression around, after sunshine comes rain. As if waking from a dream I’ve begun to experience the inner rumblings of dissatisfaction moving in on my psyche. While my external circumstances remain exactly as they are, internally a storm is brewing. Dissatisfaction can creep up on you in so many ways. It creeps up on you like thunderclouds on a sunny day. One minute you’re basking in the energy of gratitude, the energy that your life is exactly right, when the next the rainstorms of dissatisfaction soak you to the bone. For no apparent reason at all!!

And even if you’ve done your inner work and from that deep place of awareness know that this is nothing other than ‘internal weather’, you can’t help but be carried off by the pain of this energy of dissatisfaction. Suddenly your inner voice comments negatively on everything you do, from the clothing you pull out of the cupboard, to the very purpose of your existence. Suddenly it feels as if all those happy positive people around you have turned into moaning, negative and fickle friends, when all that is happening is that they are mirroring back your own energy.

And as if that’s not enough, you then become dissatisfied with yourself for being dissatisfied. And before you know it, the thunderstorms of discontent threaten to drag you into a negative spiral where gratitude seems nothing more than a naïve sentiment of days gone by.

It’s exhausting to witness this inner process, to be in this inner process, to constantly swim back to the shore after being carried off on dissatisfaction’s persistent tide. Although I may doubt whether the universe has forgotten to inform me of my next step in being professionally engaged and wondering who now is the boss of my life, but actually, I am fine. When I take a deep breath and connect to my inner core, tuning out the naggings of the mind that tries to find cause and reason for the dissatisfaction, I know that I can trust that all is exactly as it should be. But then I wake and instead of blessing another glorious day and giving thanks for my health and my friends, I instantly feel those niggles of dissatisfaction stirring inside and collecting like a stone around my soul. And that evokes the next level, doubt, and a nagging inner anxiety that there perhaps is something I need to change to make the dissatisfaction go away.

Research has shown that an ongoing sense of dissatisfaction triggers our fight/flight mechanism, bringing anxiety, a fair amount of displacement activity, and the real danger of making lifechanging decisions from a fear-based place. Never the best guide. And yet, however severely we may speak to ourselves, and however much we may disidentify from it in the moment, dissatisfaction won’t go away until you begin to see it for the evolutionary energy that it is. Seen from an evolutionary perspective, dissatisfaction spurs us on to change the things we need to change and to accept what needs accepting. If we recognise the energy of dissatisfaction as an evolutionary imperative, then we also understand that we’re not to take it personally. It’s not about you!

What if we could accept the energy of dissatisfaction, and understand that it has no other purpose than to spur us on to create a better world? What if we lifted our personal sense of dissatisfaction to the level of the collective, and saw it as a call to arms, not to move the furniture around in our own lives, but to raise our eyes to the human family that we are all part of. Yes, we feel overwhelmed by the problems that this world faces, and we often feel powerless to influence politicians and industrialists who seem to hold all the cards. But real change comes from the grassroots. And the first change is to stop using your dissatisfaction for personal ‘gain’, expand your view, and tackle what might need your loving help in becoming the change in the immediate world around you.

While working in the garden I might notice that one of my neighbours hasn’t put out her bins and feel prompted to knock on her door and make sure she’s okay. And feeling dissatisfied with the way we take care of the elderly, I might see if I can start a local group of visiting volunteers. A friend of mine took it upon herself to go for a special litter run on Mondays to clear the litter left behind on her favourite jogging path by the weekenders. It is entirely possible to connect with this energy of dissatisfaction without making it about yourself, so that you can use that energy to help improve on this already beautiful creation. Perhaps you use your dissatisfaction energy to volunteer at your son’s school so that you can be part of the solution, rather than just pointing out the problem. The best ‘cure’ for dissatisfaction is to put it and yourself in service of others, to embrace it as a necessary ingredient in the evolutionary growth journey of humanity.

Maybe you’re reading this and thinking, “that’s all well and good but there are genuinely things in my life to feel dissatisfied about.” If you are dissatisfied with your job, then yes, go, leave, do something about it, don’t let your mind tell you a thousand reasons to feed the dissatisfaction but block you from acting. Be honest to yourself. Is it the job. Or is it you? Will you carry your dissatisfaction with you to the next job, the next marriage, the next spiritual community? Be honest and ask yourself whether you’re really prepared to make the changes. Ask yourself whether the things you think will give you greater satisfaction are true, or just a case of the outer reflecting the inner.

This is what I’ve been doing these past weeks. Having an ongoing dialogue with the energy of dissatisfaction and trying to put it to greater use. Challenging my inner dissatisfied self-part, experiencing the deep grief that it causes, and refusing to let the energy suck the joy out of everything that is good about me, by offering it up to a higher cause, to its rightful purpose. Each one of us is here to add our little grain of sand to the great shores of evolution.

This is what I’ve been doing these past weeks. Having an ongoing dialogue with the energy of dissatisfaction and trying to put it to greater use. Challenging my inner dissatisfied self-part, experiencing the deep grief that it causes, and refusing to let the energy suck the joy out of everything that is good about me, by offering it up to a higher cause, to its rightful purpose. Each one of us is here to add our little grain of sand to the great shores of evolution.

It’s not happiness that makes us grateful, but it is the act of graciously and lovingly redirecting our dissatisfaction into service, that bring the gratitude that makes us happy.