Yesterday marked the end of our eight day journey into self-gratitude and I heard from people how challenging it had been, but also what a gift it was so far – igniting the very key they felt they had neglected. Remember that if you did officially participate and want to be part of the giveaway and accountability, please send in your shares by end of today, Tuesday June 11th.

A reminder on the guidelines can be found here:

New Moon Gratitude Giveaway With a Twist

We had far less people participating with this challenge than the general Gratitude Challenge, as it was tough and not something people felt as comfortable with. That’s exactly why I felt to put it out there.

But we did have a great group, both officially and unofficially joining, as well as some people that joined mid-way who hadn’t seen the challenge until it had already begun. They really resonated and decided to incorporate it into their lives and begin it from the day they became aware of it.

We’ll see how many actually do send me their shares, but in any case, I want to say thank you to anyone who did join in whatever way you felt called or able to, and who felt the value in this.

It was interesting to me that at the same time, the local meditation group here had decided to have “self love” as their monthly theme, but in the first day of the month’s gathering so many continued to voice being challenged by it and having difficulty in finding clarity between self love and ego or narcissism. Teachings out there even help support this idea with spiritual bypassing or tricky definitions that make it hard to get to the core by keeping you running in circles around yourself.

And then there’s the mind that is really good at analyzing and dissecting, keeping people in intellectualizing mode, rather than going into the abstract feelings that simply want to be acknowledged and felt.

In some cases it simply revealed itself as a concept a lot of people hadn’t really explored and journeyed in depth, although had heard about it, and in most cases people didn’t know where to begin or what to do in order to get into the emotions beyond the mental thoughts and concepts.

I could understand why and also saw the connection this has to disconnect we experience with others, global issues, our emotions, and so much more.

I decided to join this even though I have and do a lot of inner work, because cycles in life reveal layers and being at another key point of change that has brought new things to surface, I have been feeling deeply within and implementing new approaches.

I found my list to have some wonderful insights about myself that I don’t daily think of as gifts, as well as experienced a lot of sweetness and softness in how I was relating to myself simply by acknowledging some tender parts of me.

I also noticed that during this time period I experienced more possibility stream in (perhaps as reflection of seeing more of myself), my days relaxed more and I ended them earlier in terms of “doing” things (perhaps as reflection of making more space for me), and I experienced others around me opening more too and having new experiences even though they weren’t doing this with me (as within, so without).

In general, an even greater experience of alignment seems to be in motion.

I’m curious to hear what others have experienced.

I’m still sitting with everything and in process of implementing changes that have come through during this time, but I do feel grateful I did this and am curious where things will go from here.