I would be grateful if you’d forward to a few friends
an installment of G.M.G. you find meaningful and help set a record
for readership for GoodMorningGratitude.com’s second birthday on April 25, 2013.
Thank you.
learning to be happy
Path To Gratitude
There are many pathways to being more grateful, to be happier and to improve one’s outlook on life. Here are a few from the ongoing dialogue I have with myself.
Growing gratitude has been a game changer. Gratefulness fosters the growth of additional thankfulness; makes me stronger and more resilient; more patient and understanding; helps me love with an open heart; brings added belief in myself and enhances every step I make on the path of my life, even the painful and difficult. Making gratitude a way of life does not change things quickly, but over time the difference has been remarkable.
The way you treat yourself
sets the standard for others.
Sonya Friedman
I would be grateful if you’d forward to a few friends
an installment of G.M.G. you find meaningful and help set a record
for readership for GoodMorningGratitude.com’s second birthday on April 25, 2013.
Thank you.
A Gratitude List
I would be grateful if you’d forward to a few friends
an installment of G.M.G. you find meaningful and help set a record
for readership for GoodMorningGratitude.com’s second birthday on April 25, 2013.
Thank you.
A list of what quickly comes to mind that I am grateful for this morning:
A body that works well in spite of accumulated aches and pains; A home I love living in surrounded by a wealth of possessions; A few close friends I love dearly and who love me; An inquiring mind that wants to learn and know; A more than ample supply of food; A large library of music and something to listen to it on…
Two older cars that run well and are paid for; Being modestly financially secure; Good health that makes everything else more enjoyable; The hard times and heart aches that taught me so well; A working computer and internet access; My library of books large enough to keep me busy for the rest of my life…
A son I am proud of and am glad to have a close relationship with; Love given to me even when I did not always value it as I should have at the time; My professional success and those I worked with who made it possible; My kind heart, gentle ways and caring soul; Intelligence to look deeper, to seek, to ask questions…
The natural powers beyond me that make my world what it is; Spiritual belief that enhances everything; People I loved and lost, but still carry love for in my heart; The inspiration caused me to write this blog and continue it; The knowing the best of my life is still is in front of me; The works of nature all around that still astound me…
I dare you to jot down a gratitude list right now. There is absolutely NOTHING like making one to awaken a deeper level of happiness and contentment. For all on the list I could think of on the fly and the thousands of blessings that did not swiftly come to mind, I am thankful. The joy in my soul, the happiness in my heart, the mental contentment and every ounce of love and caring I have ever received are gifts sometimes I don’t feel fully deserving of, but embrace with gratefulness that overflows.
The very quality of your life,
whether you love it or hate it,
is based upon how thankful you are…
It is one’s attitude that determines
whether life unfolds into a place
of blessedness or wretchedness.
Francis Frangipane
Marked With Lines of Life
As I grow older and can see my golden years begin to appear on the distance horizon I pay more attention to “old people” (which I define as late 70’s or older). The reason is simple: to get a better idea what might be in store for me one day.
While it’s is a gross over generalization, there seems to be two distinct varieties of senior citizens. Group one leans toward being short-tempered, impatient, generally in a bad mood and visibly unhappy about life. Mostly it’s regret I see in their faces. Group two appears to be more or less opposite: patient, even-tempered, generally in a good mood and happy about being alive. It’s gladness I notice about them.
After watching closely for a couple of years I can find nothing discerning between the groups except their outlook. Health does not seem a major factor. Just about as many in failing health seem to be happy as those who appear miserable. Financial status appears to not be a dividing line either. Those appearing poor or rich come in both varieties in about the same number.
Attitude seems to be the difference. The “glasses” life is being viewed through is the key.
When stereotypes are negative — when seniors are convinced becoming old means becoming useless, helpless or devalued — they are less likely to seek preventive medical care and die earlier, and more likely to suffer memory loss and poor physical functioning, a growing body of research shows.
When stereotypes are positive — when older adults view age as a time of wisdom, self-realization and satisfaction — results point in the other direction, toward a higher level of functioning. The latest report, in The Journal of the American Medical Association, suggests that seniors with this positive bias are 44 percent more likely to fully recover from a bout of disability. http://newoldage.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/12/19/older-people-are-what-they-think-study-shows/
Happiness in old age may have more to do with attitude than actual health, a new study suggests. Researchers examined 500 Americans age 60 to 98 who live independently and had dealt with cancer, heart disease, diabetes, mental health conditions or a range of other problems. The participants rated their own degree of successful aging on scale of 1-10, with 10 being best. Despite their ills, the average rating was 8.4. http://www.livescience.com/3974-happiness-age-depends-attitude.html
How glad I am to have begun this blog nearly two years ago! More than any single thing in memory, writing each day has given me a much better attitude about life: one with good quantities of gratitude and contentment. Outwardly my life has changed some, though not that much. What is different is ME from the inside, out. Growing gratitude within is my single best ingredient for aging gratefully and enjoying growing older. Old age has unique perks that being young never allows!
Your face is marked with lines of life,
put there by love and laughter,
suffering and tears. It’s beautiful.”
Lynsay Sands
Letter to a Heartbroken Friend
Dear _______,
Don’t worry about the future. It will unfold as it does, unaffected by your thought and worry. What is to be will not be swayed one millimeter by your anguish. I know you are heartbroken, but it is not love that is the source of most of your pain. Love is always pure and never the source of grief. Given time, if you allow it, misery and sorrow will overpower the purity of your love and bury it in animosity and bitterness. Please don’t let that happen.
Deep grief sometimes is almost like a specific location, a coordinate on a map of time. When you are standing in that forest of sorrow, you cannot imagine that you could ever find your way to a better place. Someday you’re gonna look back on this moment of your life as such a sweet time of grieving. You’ll see that you were in mourning and your heart was broken, but your life was changing… Elizabeth Gilbert
Comfort and happiness, as enjoyable as they feel, are not catalysts for personal development. It’s the difficult times where fertile ground exists for our growth. Please do not hate your pain. Growth is always uncomfortable; sometimes even agonizing. Accept the hurting with a thankfulness for what was instead of a dread for what might or might not be again one day.
I wish I could tell you getting past your heartbreak will be easy. It won’t be. But if you intentionally let go a little each day, slowly your aching will ease. With effort you’ll be able to not think about your loss for a little while at a time and with practice your heartache will be out of heart and mind more and more. Progress will be slow, but certain if you make is so.
Giving her the space she has asked you for is a certain way to show your love to her. To cling and grab to hold on, will only shred into jagged pieces what was once shared. If there is more for you two to share, it will arrive in its due time and not one second before.
Peace and Love,
James
I am grateful for friends who are comfortable enough with me to share their deep private feelings. It is in a common trust and sharing of emotion and thought with others who “get me and I them” that healing and recovery is possible.
We crucify ourselves between two thieves:
regret for yesterday and fear of tomorrow.
Fulton Oursler
Life: One, Two, Three, Four
One for the money:
Making money isn’t hard in itself… What’s hard is to earn it doing something worth devoting one’s life to. Carlos Ruiz Zafon
Two for the show:
Please do not break your heart over the withering of a dream you once held, that never became yours! After all, the shattered dream could have very well been a nightmare and not a dream at all, you wouldn’t really know because you didn’t have it yet! Let the sparks fade, let the flame dim and die, you’ll never know it wasn’t poison. C. Joybell C.
Three to make ready:
I eventually came to understand that in harboring the anger, the bitterness and resentment towards those that had hurt me, I was giving the reins of control over to them. Forgiving was not about accepting their words and deeds. Forgiving was about letting go and moving on with my life. In doing so, I had finally set myself free. Isabel Lopez
And four to go:
Life will break you. Nobody can protect you from that, and living alone won’t either, for solitude will also break you with its yearning. You have to love. You have to feel. It is the reason you are here on earth. You are here to risk your heart. You are here to be swallowed up. And when it happens that you are broken, or betrayed, or left, or hurt, or death brushes near, let yourself sit by an apple tree and listen to the apples falling all around you in heaps, wasting their sweetness. Tell yourself you tasted as many as you could. Louise Erdrich
Accumulated wisdom is plentiful and easy to find. I am grateful for the reminder to not assume I know how to use it from simply reading the words. Only when I take the time to soak up what is said can wisdom offered by others become a help to me. Thank you to all who are and have come before who share their thoughts which help me live better each day. I am grateful for your gifts.
A State of Beingness
Acceptance of how much influence I actually have over the quality of my life is frightening. Grasping that I, more than any other factor, am what shapes the quality of my existence takes a bit of courage. When I used to blame and point fingers at people and circumstances for my lack of contentment and happiness, I felt confidently miserable. There is no courageousness in that, nor anything else that lends itself toward a good life.
That’s the thing about unhappiness. I realize in my past feeling certain why I was unhappy became the little island in the big scary ocean I hung on to. I felt dejected, but certain of why and that was my answer for things. Life sucked because it sucked. That’s pretty silly when I actually type the words.
Time and effort brought the lesson that in total, I usually cannot put a finger on exactly why I am feeling good; why happiness has invaded the space gloom used to occupy. Of course I can identify some of the causes, but far from all of it. What matters is that I live fully in my contented times and not try to mentally research the source. I need to “just be” as the phrase goes.
The same is true of my down times. Trying to sort out all the reasons “why” is impossible and makes the murkiness last longer. It is far better to simply bear well the gloomy moments and let them pass. Analyzing such times ALWAYS makes them last longer.
Do not waste the precious moments of this, your present reality, seeking to unveil all of life’s secrets. Those secrets are a secret for a reason. Use your NOW moment for the Highest Purpose- the creation and the expression of WHO YOU REALLY ARE. Decide who you are- who you want to be-and then do everything in your power to be that.
It is not nearly so important how well a message is received as how well it is sent. You cannot take responsibility for how well another accepts your truth; you can only ensure how well it is communicated. And by how well, I don’t mean merely how clearly; I mean how lovingly, how compassionately, how sensitively, how courageously, and how completely.
If you think your life is about DOINGNESS, you do not understand what you are about. Your soul doesn’t care what you do for a living-and when your life is over, neither will you. Your soul cares only about what you’re BEING while you’re doing whatever you’re doing. Neal Donald Walsh
And so I enter into my day, self-reminded of how I to use well the gift of the next fourteen hours or so of consciousness. I will do my best to not waste too much applying logic and analysis to life. Instead, with gratefulness I will endeavor to embrace the time being as truly “myself” as I possibly can.
The reason people find it so hard to be happy
is that they always see the past better than it was,
the present worse than it is,
and the future less resolved than it will be.
Marcel Pagnol
What I Think, I Become
My life is living proof that changing the focus of thoughts can change a life. Worry and compulsion used to be stirred into my thinking most of the time which kept me constantly dealing with a brooding outlook on life. While not immune to feeling such things today, my ‘habit’, even addiction if you will, to negative thinking is no longer.
Buddha said it succinctly, “The mind is everything. What you think you become”.
For me it is all about what I pay attention to. If I keep “pulling the scabs” off the past, wounds never heal. If I spend too much time lamenting about how the future will turn out, what I hope for never arrives because my thinking crowds out its possibility.
Controlling my thoughts fully is impossible. Certainly I slip into old ways of thinking regularly, but usually catch myself before being there for long. At first, breaking my habit/addiction to negative thinking was damned hard; I was hooked on feeling bad. Success at reflecting away some of my thoughts would come for only a short while before slipping back into thoughts of fear, doom and gloom. I kept trying and slowly my success grew at not getting stuck.
If we tune-in on thoughts of failure, illness, discouragement, despair and hate, the charts of our lives will take a sharp downward course.
If we tune-in on thoughts of victory, love, hope and faith, our lives will become larger, finer, more worth while.
If we tune-in on the surface things that break like bubbles and leave us nothing, our lives will be shallow and empty.
If we tune-in on the deeper things, eternal principles of plain living and high thinking, the riches which men have put into immortal literature, art and music, then entire personalities will grow and expand.
If we permit ourselves to become selfish and cold toward others, the springs of love and sentiment will dry up leaving us but the husks of life.
If, on the other hand, we are kind and thoughtful and considerate of others; if we strive always to pluck a thorn and plant a flower wherever we think a flower will grow, riches more valuable than much fine gold will enter our lives.
Saint and sinner, prince and pauper, the things men tune-in on become a part of them and make them what they are. By Lilly Ames-Light
Ups and downs are just as much a part of my life as for anyone else, but my mood swings don’t tear me down anymore. Just like rain only lasts for a time, dark days and dark thoughts pass away as well. When comparing life to 15 years ago, I have friends who refer to me as the “old one” and the “new one”. My evolution has been that pronounced. I am grateful!
Rules for Self Discovery:
1. What we want most;
2. What we think about most;
3. How we use our money;
4. What we do with our leisure time;
5. The company we enjoy;
6. Who and what we admire;
7. What we laugh at.
A.W. Tozer
Because I Will Make It So
There is a vitality,
a life force,
a quickening
that is translated through you into action,
and there is only one of you in all time,
this expression is unique,
and if you block it,
it will never exist through any other medium;
and be lost. The world will not have it.
It is not your business to determine how good it is,
not how it compares with other expression.
is your business to keep it yours clearly and directly,
to keep the channel open.
You do not even have to believe in yourself or your work.
You have to keep open and aware directly
to the urges that motivate you.
Keep the channel open.
No artist is pleased.
There is no satisfaction whatever at any time.
There is only a queer, divine dissatisfaction,
a blessed unrest that keeps us marching
and makes us more alive than the others.
Martha Graham
Another new day; another gift I will not take for granted. Whatever there is for me to paint and sculpt out of this little piece of the hard rock of life, I will be grateful for it all. Every breath will have a silver lining of joy. Why? Because I will make it so.
Make your choice, adventurous Stranger,
Strike the bell and bide the danger,
Or wonder, till it drives you mad,
What would have followed if you had.
C.S. Lewis
My Imperfect Seeking
Response to the post here yesterday, “Stuck In the Labyrinth“, was much stronger than usual. Thank you for reading and for your re-posts! I suppose it is a commonality we all have: too much time spent thinking about the past and future when being well footed in the present would be a far better use of our energy. Just about all of us know that, but at least for me, practicing it is, at best, a highly inconsistent endeavor. But earnest trying improves my life experience a lot.
Mostly as a reminder to myself to keep the “now” in as clear of a focus as I can, below are some leftovers from yesterday’s research.
We are living in a culture
entirely hypnotized by the illusion of time,
in which the so-called present moment
is felt as nothing but an infinitesimal hairline
between an all-powerfully causative past
and an absorbingly important future.
We have no present.
Our consciousness is almost completely preoccupied
with memory and expectation.
We do not realize that there never was,
is, nor will be any other experience than present experience.
We are therefore out of touch with reality.
We confuse the world as talked about,
described, and measured
with the world which actually is.
We are sick with a fascination
for the useful tools of names and numbers,
of symbols, signs, conceptions and ideas.
Alan Watts
When you understand… that what you’re telling is just a story… It isn’t happening anymore. When you realize the story you’re telling is just words, when you can just crumble up and throw your past in the trashcan… then we’ll figure out who you’re going to be. From “Invisible Monsters” Chuck Palahniuk
And, so I go into my day reminded again of the important of being firmly rooted in the “now”. To a level of 100% that is an impossible aspiration, yet it is my imperfect seeking that gives me more and more of the present to live in and be grateful for.
Gratitude looks to the Past
and love to the Present;
fear, avarice, lust, and ambition look ahead.
C.S. Lewis
Good Morning Gratitude 