“Contentment is not the fulfillment of what you want, but the realization of how much you already have.” -Unknown

These days I feel swallowed up in the experience of grief and loss. Even as there is a part of me that recognizes the massive changes that are happening inside Good Clean Love are fulfilling my dreams, I can’t seem to explain or move through the heartbreak of losing control of a business that feels like it is me.

It is easy to get lost in emotional experiences, both good and bad. The first thing we lose sight of is that experience is a transient thing. Our feelings, thoughts and personal exchanges are impermanent and temporary but they feel like reality while we are in it. These temporal forces have power-like weather systems blowing through our lives and disrupting the day to day, often without warning.

Swimming in the sea of experience can consume so much attention and energy that we stop listening and looking for the moments of realization that transform and change us permanently. Inner realizations, the “a-ha” moments of life, is when we come to understand something clearly and distinctly, so much so that something in your thinking or being is made real and concrete. These are the epiphanies of growing up, the wisdom that follows loss, and the inner voice that leads us to a better version of ourselves.

I am looking for this place of realization now, trying to get beyond the spinning noise in my head, fueled by a heart overwhelmed. Denis Waitley wrote, “Imagination plus innovation equals realization.”  This seems like a good clue- I have to think in a new way and imagine living content inside the world I am creating. Sounds like it could be the realization of contentment.