Today while cleaning I listened to two one-and-a-half-hour lectures about spiritual alchemy and a one-hour podcast/interview about grief. Then I went to dinner and read Caroline Myss’s Defy Gravity for two hours (I’m on a Myss kick lately), then came back to where I’m house sitting and read it for an hour more. And whereas I’d intended to finish the entire book tonight, my body and this blog said no. We’re too tired, we have too much to do. So whatever, that’ll just be one more book I’ve started and “need” to finish. I say need in quotation marks because as my therapist often says, “You don’t NEED to do anything. You could stay at home and eat bonbons all day if you wanted to.”

Whenever she says this, I squirm in my seat.

Like the rest of America, I’m hung up on being productive.

In Defy Gravity Caroline says that of the personal healings she’s aware of, the healings haven’t come about as a result of the mind-body connection. Rather, they’ve come about as a result of the mind-body-SOUL connection, since, she says, your rational mind doesn’t have the power to heal you but your irrational soul (your spirit) does. If you’re a follower of Caroline’s work, this is why she talks about the healing power of forgiveness and how it will never make sense to your mind (your ego). It will however, make sense to your soul.

In discussing soul work and mysticism, Caroline associates each of the seven deadly sins, as well as the seven graces (gifts of the spirit) with the seven main chakras of the physical body. For example, the first (root) chakra is located at the base of your spine and is linked to one’s fear of and need for survival. It’s our connection to THE TRIBE, as in, What will THEY think? As such, according to Caroline, the deadly sin of the first chakra is pride, which is “rooted” in the fear of being humiliated. The grace for this downfall? Reverence.

As I understand it, a grace is something you can seek out and ask for, but it’s not something you can make happen. Likewise, it’s not something you can reason yourself around to with your mind because–again–a grace comes from or is at least given to the soul. It has an effect on your mind, but that’s not its home. And whereas it’s easy to think of a grace as something fantastic and spectacular that marches into your life like a Christmas parade, more often than not, it’s not. For example, the day I asked a counselor friend of mine for a recommendation for a therapist and he gave me my therapist’s name, that was a HUMONGOUS grace. Of course, I didn’t know it then. I just jotted down the number and off I went. It took time for me to realize how “lucky” I was to be introduced to that one person, how my much life would change for the better.

Back to the seven deadly sins, the one that’s on my mind tonight is greed, which Caroline links to the second chakra, our center of relationships–to other people, to money, to sex. Rightly so, I think, some yoga practitioners refer to the second charka, which is located at the level of your sex organs, as the emotional junkyard. Personally, I’m not afraid to say I have a lot of issues there–both emotional and physical. Anyway, it felt like a bit of a slap in the face when I read that greed is the potential driver behind the issues in my second chakra, since I don’t picture myself as a Scrooge McDuck. But one way Caroline describes greed is having the thought or feeling that “there’s not enough.”

Well, okay, fine, you got me there.

For me, the idea of “not enough” is deeply engrained and ever present. I could blame this on my particular life circumstances, but the truth is, scarcity is embedded in our culture. Just look at any form of advertising. All of it’s built around the idea that we don’t have enough–beauty, wealth, friends, or vacation time. Many spiritual books subtly (and not so subtly) convey the idea that we don’t have enough spirituality. Where I personally feel the most scarcity (or a greed for more) is in my finances and my knowledge-base. This is why I’m constantly listening to lectures, constantly reading. Granted, I enjoy these things thoroughly, but underneath it all is a fear that I don’t have enough of whatever it is and, therefore, need more of it. Personally, I think most of our ugly inclinations (seven deadly sins) have fear at their base.

Caroline says the grace we need to counteract greed (or the fear of scarcity if that’s easier for you to swallow) is piety, humility, or devotion to God. As I understand this, this grace puts us in touch with another quality of the second chakra–creativity. This is important because–and I can speak to this personally–our creative energy is a limitless flow of resources. Said another way, our creativity is abundant, anything but scarce. I’ve experienced this firsthand in writing every day for 850 days. Never once has my creative well run dry. Likewise, I’ve experienced instant creativity on the dance floor, especially when I’m in the moment and not thinking about what others think of me. This, I think, is where piety or humility comes in. Whenever I’m trying to impress someone, whenever I think, I’m hot shit, my creativity shuts down.

I’ve said before that I often feel or believe that good things happen to other people but not to me. Now, I can logically tell you that’s not true, but our feelings and beliefs are rarely logical. Anyway, my therapist says this is a dumb belief. “Good things happen to everybody,” she says. “If the Kardashians can make money, so can you.” Once while discussing this topic I said, “I guess it’s another way of feeling like I’m special–because I’m the exception to the rule.”

“Well, yeah,” she said, “but special in a real dumb way.”

Like I frequently do in our sessions, I laughed out loud when she said this. Why? Because it’s true. It is dumb to think good things happen to others but not to you. It’s another form of scarcity. Likewise, it’s dumb to think you live in a “not enough” universe when you’ve been taken care of and had more than enough you’re entire life. Like, how many pairs of shoes do you have? And yet you only have two feet. If you really get this point, you’ll laugh out loud too. This, I think, is another way grace comes to us, through those moments when we really see ourselves and how ridiculous we can be. Scrooge McDuck had so much gold that he could swim in it, and yet he wanted more. We have everything we have (we have enough, we are enough), and yet we want more.

Talk about funny.