Satisfied

I know…I am blessed
I know…all I ever wanted was this
I know…I don’t need more
I’ve got… what I came for ( Copper Wimmin)

There is something so satisfying about the first shoots of crocuses, daffodils, or tulips in your yard, the robin's return, the intensity of the sun on your shoulders, or anything with color that pops in your view like a bird to backyard tree or the green moss uncovered on your stroll through the woods.   Recently there has been one particular bird that has returned and they have the most enviable sound.  It is calm, reassuring, consistent, and dripping with satisfaction for the listener. Maybe too, enviable because the bird doesn't try to make a new sound, or a better one. They too seem to have satisfied their own thirst for a song with this repetitive tune.

The only thing better than sharing words strung together as poetry that lights you up and makes you feel question, or wonder is someone else sending or sharing a poem that they connect to or that does all those things for them.   For the month of April, I had been sharing a poem or two a day from various poets that I have previously enjoyed and new ones recently discovered.   I am always on the hunt for the biggest punch in the smallest of phrases. Poetry to me has the power, intentionally but most times unintentionally to inspire, offer grace, and soft landings within our realizations.  So when I come across a poem that someone else has shouted out or shared or has sent to me directly, it is deeply satisfying.  They have offered me a little window into their perspective and tastes.   While hunting for poems to share,  I came across one that someone I follow shared and right away it resonated with me.   Another poem was sent to me in a text I really enjoyed and I spent time later perusing other poems by the poet who I had thought was exclusively a  novelist.  Words are so powerful for evoking emotion and it is amazing how they navigate through landscapes within us that we may not have visited yet just by the way they are strung together, so this month of sharing had satisfied creatively for me.

One of the poems that I stumbled upon was talking about plants needing to get thirsty to bloom and my wonder about the idea of being satisfied was born.  When we water our houseplants to eliminate this thirst and allow for growth, we notice that they only drink to be satisfied and the rest becomes the excess they don't need to flourish.  The plant knows when it is thirsty and just how much water will quench that thirst.  Without trying to personify the plant world, I use this more as a metaphor for thinking about how satisfaction works for us.  

Satisfied isn't a word that we seem to aspire for in our lives. No one tells us to strive to be content people even if we think this may be a byproduct of aspiring to greatness.  In fact, there are copious quotes and inspirational writings to the contrary. One that comes to mind says if we are satisfied we won't tend to the well for others and another is, we can be grateful but never satisfied if we want to make a change.  Your employer wants to be wowed by your performance. Your teacher expects you to strive for your full potential.  If you are merely satisfied we often think that someone is complacent or settling. Possibly giving up on a bigger goal.  This reminds me of the old report card that used to have a checklist for satisfactory, good,  and I have selectively forgotten what else but I know I was never striving for the checkmark beside satisfactory.   I guess I  didn't want someone to just be satisfied with my academic or social performance and it was an odd feeling to me to just be satisfactory at anything, which as an aside I generally always was.  But now as I reflect back, I can see the merit or value in satisfied and  I am wondering if we may have been underrating the idea of feeling so or someone else feeling that way about us. Maybe satisfaction should be the overriding wish or goal for our living and greatness could be the byproduct instead. 

Satisfied to me now looks or feels like a plant unfurling its leaves while the excess water seeps into the dish below.  My dog as he plops himself on the couch after his morning run.  The ocean retreating from the sandy or rocky shores. A child flopping into bed after a day of play outside with no resistance. The feeling of warmth in our bodies after sipping a cup of tea or drying off after our morning shower.  There is an endless list of ways that we are satisfying ourselves in the moments of our lives and I am thinking that most, if not all are the things we witness or create not the things we acquire.  So many of the truly satisfying experiences come from a place first of this thirst. I use the example of this time of year when we have been deprived of color for so long, our thirst is satisfied when we witness the first colors of Spring in an otherwise brown landscape.  The longing for the open water after being bathed in ice and frozen rivers.  Seeing the aliveness of buds sprouting from the soil when we have been surrounded by dormancy for so long.  Being satisfied with the natural world around us is the greatest gift we can offer the earth and ourselves and maybe being unsatisfied or continuing to thirst for what we don't understand or haven't made peace with is exactly how we have landed on a planet with overused resources and people struggling for purpose, connection, and perspective. Without respecting that there can be limits, boundaries, and the concept of enough for all of us, we feel lost in the imbalance this creates. What if we practiced trying on satisfied in our lives? Would the space we create for rest, imagination, relationships, fun, and experiences quiet the voice that pushes us to strive for more, and would this satisfaction lead to more respectful actions towards ourselves and our planet? You see why I need to write this here as my circle isn't always ready for these kinds of dinner conversations.

It makes so much sense that we are not satisfied most of the time with just being satisfied because we get messages from childhood into our adult lives to always strive for better or best.  For greatness.  We are fed ideas of more in all the messages around and within us. We believe that the resources of the world are ours to not only satisfy but to elevate our experience, our living conditions, and value without reverence for how that idea impacts all of those living this same received message.   We are all on a journey unique to ourselves and I could probably say with confidence that what often instigates the healing path is a need to feel satisfied.  Satisfied with our lives, our people, our purpose,  our service, and ourselves.  I truly believe that one of the most rebellious acts of our time is to be satisfied.  Satisfied means we don't have to strive, we don't have to crave, we don't need to compare, we don't need to fit in,  we don't need to feel small or feel great or more than anyone else on this path.  Michelle Obama talks about her parents being the most content people she knew and she attributes it to the fact that they were always satisfied with the life they were living and the love they were surrounding themselves with.  They were rich in all the ways that satisfied the thirsts that mattered.  We all know those people or are those people that others are drawn to for this very reason.  We think they must possess some understanding of the mysteries and miseries of life that we don't.  Whether we see it as an understanding or a mystery, I think what it is is a knowing of when they are actually thirsty and what they are truly thirsty for. Thirsty for love can look like buying the next new thing to feel temporarily satisfied.  Overworking can be the thirst for recognition and worthiness. Being overly involved in the world of technology can be a need for connection that could be better satisfied by immersing ourselves in nature. Never feeling like we have enough and operating from scarcity can be our thirst for our own self-love and acceptance.    My striving as a child for more than the satisfactory check mark was part of that thirst journey for worthiness.   I love the example of my own dear Shanti who every night, can be found slurping back the entire water bowl that he has neglected throughout the day, just before he jumps up on my bed to sleep through the night. He recognizes his thirst, regardless of how others may be replenishing their supply differently, and he drinks what he needs to be satisfied and sleep well.   

I hope throughout life, in this ever-changing landscape,  we can continue to find ways to really feel satisfied.  I hope like Shanti we are able to make more opportunities to drink only when we are thirsty and that we all know, sometimes at least, what we are thirsty for and in doing this maybe understand that enough satisfies, that everyone can quench their thirst and share the resources for a more evolved version of a flourishing life, for us and the earth and maybe that more, better, and best were just the stories that distracted us from doing the real work and being the real authentic versions of ourselves.