The world is testing us. It is making it really difficult to trust. Trust and remember the whole picture. We may think, oh that does not affect me, and yet it does. We see it, read about it, and feel it. Difficulty in the world is our difficulty. It is not a clearcut take it or leave it issue. Like it or not. Conscious or less conscious. We are taking it. And big time. This external stuff that isn’t affecting us is stealing something extremely important. Our vitality, joy, and a fundamental core value – gratitude.
Look Around
Don’t trust me? Have you looked at yourself in the mirror when you aren’t watching? Have you looked at the expression of the people around you? – Your spouse, children, collegues. The man in the produce section at the supermarket. The woman in the car next to you. The smile is not there.
It has been replaced with this upside down curve and lines between the brows.
We are forgetting how blessed we are even with everything.
When Everything Is Not Everything
Because here is the thing. It is not everything. Ever.
But we do need to remember this. Because the fact is that once negativity, numbness, and fear penetrates inside of us, it is not so easy to shake off.
We begin to become enveloped by it.
Have you ever gotten really twisted up between your sheet? It is like this, but a zillion trillion times worse of course.
Not Giving Up
So what is a poor guy or girl to do? We are on this daily journey of feeling and healing, practicing ourselves towards heightened awareness, compassion, kindness, inner strength, and all out personal growth, and the external world – near and far – keeps dumping it upon us.
Well, first of all, we ditch the word poor because you and I darling friend are a mountain of wealth. We know that the GOLD lies within us.
And then, we return exactly there. WITHIN US. We continue our practice. Every day. Every moment that we can.
We use reminders, affirmations, and moments of stillness. We beauty hunt and make lists of the abundance. And we surround ourselves with people that fill us and cultivate our spaces as well. We do not give up.
Gratitude is much about this. It is a fighter instinct.
You become your own warrior of fierce thankfulness, love, and acceptance.
You are battling to hold on to the abundance.
What Gratitude Means (to me)
Gratitude is the power of choosing. Choosing to love yourself and your life no matter what.
Many people associate gratitude with letting go.
However for me, gratitude is not about letting go of all the things in your life that are wrong or perceived as wrong, the things you wish were not present right now.
Although a consistent gratitude practice may even lead to this release, this is not the goal.
No.
Gratitude is a letting in. An alllowing. Allowing what is right now to be enough for you to feel the abundance.
And it is also about voluntarily tasting the sweetness of a complete life. Bitter parts and all.
Not About 100 Percent
You do not have to be 100 percent positive and 0 percent negative to be grateful or live abundantly. This would be a Hallmark movie.
Gratitude is not about living in a fantasyland. Grateful people are extremely realistic and grounded.
Being grateful is about living all parts of your life completely in an equanimous way.
Seeing the good just as much as all the rest.
50/50 is enough to remember how blessed you are in every moment.
Gratitude Is Not About Giving Favoritism
We do not favor the good when we are grateful.
It is about being thankful for this full, messy life because you understand the value of the bad stuff.
You remind yourself that beautiful life can miraculously grow on dry, poorly cared for terrain and even through cement.
The seed must grow regardless of the fact that it’s planted in stone.
Tupac Shakur, The Rose That Grew from Concrete
An Abundance Mindset
We tend to focus on what is wrong and lacking instead of what is right and abundant in ourselves, our relationships, our jobs, our homes, the weather.
I don’t believe that this is human nature. We are not born this way. But it is common because us humans are easily conditioned towards the negative.
This is why we need a gratitude practice to instill an abundance mindset.
We need to practice wanting what we already have and feeling the abundance during the worst storm. Reminding ourselves that we can dance through it as we seek support and maybe even cry.
You remember to give thanks between the complaints until maybe – perhaps – one day you find yourself not complaining about yourself or life anymore.
It Is Also An Empowerment Mindset
Gratitude feels steady, calm, and joyful in our body and mind. When we are grateful we feel like the Universe was made for us. Much like being in love, we feel invincible.
Actually we are in love. We are in love with ourselves and our life. This is amazingly empowering.
Dwell on the beauty of life. Watch the stars, and see yourself running with them.
Marco Aurelio
Marco Aurelio and The Power within
I recently came upon the writings of Marco Aurelio, Emperor of Rome in the second century.
While he was protecting the empire, he wrote notes to himself about awareness, inner strength, being human, and protecting abundancy of life.
Many of his meditations focused on the power of acting upon what is in our control and the power to ignore what isn’t.
Gratitude is something we can always control. And this is the essence of empowering ourselves with gratitude.
As Aurelio wrote, If you are distressed by anything external, the pain is not due to the thing itself, but to your estimate of it; and this you have the power to revoke at any moment.
The Benefits of Gratitude
Gratitude affects every aspect of our life. It is an incredibly potent force. When we have gratitude in our heart we have the power to transform any moment. It is a life-altering core value.
Here are some of the benefits of practicing gratitude:
- more positive emotions
- less mood swings
- a sense of purpose
- overall vitality
- reduced stress
- increased concentration
- more creativity
- better decision making
- better sleep
- heightened compassion and kindness
- a stronger immune system
Acknowledging all the good that you already have in your life is the foundation of all abundance.
Eckhart Tolle
How To Protect Your Abundant Energy in Difficult Times
The world is dim today. Maybe your personal world is experiencing some darkness as well.
And no matter what you are feeling about life, you can remember that you have a light within you.
This light is made up of your love and compassion. It is an energy of abundance.
When you feel despair or heartbreak your light shines your full humanness out into the world.
When the darkness gets darker you can shine brighter.
Be kind to yourself. Find ways to serve. This is us using our GOLD in the powerful way.
Maybe there is great suffering that is too far away and we feel helpless. However, may we remember that we can always do something.
Just a message to a person saying my prayers are with you. This is light. Our goodness.
Our making someone feel seen during the pain.
May we not forget about the suffering that is happening next door. There is always someone who needs our love and attention today.
And may we not abandon our joy. Joy is hope. Light in someone else’s cracks.
If we allow ourselves to fall deep in despair, especially for other people’s trauma, we cannot offer them our gifts.
Ways to Protect Our Abundant Energy
- Go within. Stay consistent with your gratitude practice, meditation practice or any other practice that reinforces your light.
- Limit the negativity you absorb: people, social media, the news. In this case more does not equate with caring more.
- Care for others and share your love and compassion. Create deep connection.
- Remember that caring for others requires you to care for yourself first. So protect yourself.
7 Less Common Things To Be Grateful For Every Day
It is easy to think of the obvious things to be grateful for. Our health. Our loved ones. Food, water, air, sunlight.
But there is so much beauty in every day that we don’t acknowledge or maybe would never think of putting in the same sentence as the words grateful, thankful, blessing or abundant.
So let’s beauty hunt in less common places. But first, we must acknowledge…
#1 – Life And Being Alive
This first thing may seem obvious. Of course. We are grateful for our life.
However, this is the number one thing that we take for granted.
So I am going to get this one out of the way and remind us: We do not have the right to be here just because we were born.
People die every day. Children die. This life of yours, whatever age you have arrived at, is a gift. A miracle.
Treat it with the honor and respect it deserves. Give thanks every morning you wake up. to your body, your heart, your mind, and your breath.
They are devoted servants and here just for you.
These are the most sacred things that you have for as long as you are granted the blessing of this unique and precious life.
Feel grateful right now.
#2 – Difficulty & Challenge
I do not want to forget the difficult. I do not want to forget the uncomfortable. I do not want to forget the scary.
I do not want to forget what I wish I could forget.
May we remember so that all of our experiences serve us.
Life Not Going To Plan
Imagine life without variability. Yeah for a while it would be real sweet. It could feel like a nice break.
But after a while we would become like Bill Murray’s character Phil in the movie Groundhog Day.
In this movie we see how profoundly we need change for personal growth.
What would you do if you were stuck in one place, and everything that you did was the same, and nothing mattered?
Phil, Groundhog Day
Our mind needs to be challenged. Our heart needs to feel intense emotions. This is what being alive is about.
One of my yoga teachers, Travis Eliot often says, we are never given a challenge we can’t handle.
I believe in this. And I also believe in the value of hard things.
Each challenging situation you face teaches you something and helps you grow in one way or another.
Instead of complaining and adding all that negativity to it, say thank you and see how in some way, the experience transforms into something not only intense, but also intensely beautiful.
Remember a time you experienced pain or disappointment.
Looking back, did this experience help you to become the person you are today?
A Bad Day
If it were up to us, we’d rather not have bad days. But those days when everything seems like it is going wrong are valuable when experienced with awareness and gratitude.
Here are a few reasons why:
- A bad day teaches us how to tap into our inner strength and bounce back.
- A bad day leads to self-inquiry and prevents emotional bypass.
- We often look for support during those bad days and this strengthens our bond with others.
- Bad days makes us a kinder human being. They remind us to be more loving and compassionate to others when they are having a bad day.
- Often a bad day can be due to physical, mental or emotional overload. In this case a bad day can serve as a reminder to slow down and take a break. Actually this happens pretty naturally because we usually don’t feel like doing anything on a bad day.
- A bad day can make you appreciate the good ones even more.
What We Can Say To Our Child or Someone Else On A Bad Day
I never feel good, said my 19 year old daughter one morning after our yoga practice together.
She is experiencing a pretty huge disappointment recently.
I responded with the word NEVER?.
She looked at me and I repeated, Never?
She bowed her head. No, not never.
THEN I SAID:
May I remind you of the good mood you were flaunting yesterday.
May I remind you of you laughing with your sister the day before.
May I remind you of the smile you had when you were telling me about what a good time you had the other night.
Let’s be careful of the words we use and the lies our mind tells our heart.
We can feel pain, we can go through difficulty, fear, and uncertainty, and at the same time, experience joy.
In this moment, there are so many invisible shifts taking place inside of you.
You can’t feel them yet. But I see them.
Magic mamma powers.
Trust the process of this letdown.
Your heart is not like Humpty Dumpty. It knows how to put itself back together again.
Cracks may remain and these cracks are reminders of our potential. Our strength. Our love.
It reminds us that we are alive and being alive means falling sometimes.
But when we rise like the sun, the light shines through.
And this is when we understand that those cracks in us serve a very specific purpose.
It makes space for the growth, that illuminates parts of us that only form after the break.
The sun will rise. You have it printed on your beautiful body now.
And when it does, the break transforms into a breakthrough. More potential of life. More strength. More love. More Magic.
So trust. One day you will say, thank you.
Mamma promise.
An Argument
Not all arguments are created equal. While arguments are often destructive, when approached with love and openness, an argument can offer much to be grateful for.
Be thankful for arguments because they are an opportunity to:
- improve your communication skills
- release your negative emotions
- practice your steadiness
- reflect on your responsibility and grow
- become stronger and learn how to set better boundaries
- work on humility
- remember how much you care
- reinforce the bond and sense of connection
- make up and receive a beautiful apology
Grief &Loss
To love is to lose and grieve. This is very difficult for us to accept, especially when the loss is huge and ripe.
But as we see in all types of difficulty, we will one day look back and see the value in it if we want to see it.
Our grief and loss serves to:
- remind us that we have been given the possibilty to experience love. Not everyone has this. How blessed have we been to have had this person (animal, experience) in our life?
- cultivate compassion, an extremely important quality. Compassion allows us to help others through diffiuclty and pain.
- increase our sense of purpose and connection. It enables us to love as a better version of us in the future.
Difficult People
Let’s start with the premise that bad is never all bad. And so, there is often some wonderful, generous, sensitive people inside difficult people.
And yet difficult people. They are so difficult.
Difficult people have a talent. They are able to twist their difficult way of reasoning all around our sound mind.
We just wanna strangle them sometimes. And, they can inspire us.
Often when we are dealing with difficult people, our mind:
- focuses on our own inadequacies,
- fixates on how frustrated we are, and/or
- wants to get revenge.
We lower to their level. These reactions shrink us.
The best revenge is to be unlike him who performed the injury.
Marco Aurelio
With gratitude, we can take on an ‘I can BE BETTER because of them, and NOT REDUCED by the relationship‘ approach. And eventually maybe say, thank you beautiful, difficult souls in my life.
The difficult people in our life inspire us to:
- be kinder, more compassionate, and loving.
- use better words
- grow patience and resilience
- improve listening skills
- be less reactive.
Sit with this idea: Difficult people inspire you to be better. This does not mean that we are anybody’s emotional mat.
Boundaries are necessary. And we get better at this too.
#3- Your Memory, Dreams & Faith
Memories
I am so thankful for my memories. For all the photos that I have taken and for the words I have written.
And for my beautiful mind for remembering.
We are often thankful for the experience, but we don’t think about expressing gratitude for the memory.
Memories are what live on and:
- let us remember all the precious moments
- provides us with a means of bonding with the people in our lives and allowing them to continue bonding with us once our physical body is gone.
- reminds us of all that we have learned from the good experiences we have had, and even more, from all of those bad ones.
Without memory we would not have time to think back and laugh, realize that it wasn’t as bad as we perceive it to be.
We wouldn’t have the opportunty to place value upon all those past challenges and feel thankful.
Dreams & Faith
Dreams allow us to feel alive in the present moment.
Even during the most impossible, horrific times we can still dream. And this often gives us the strength to endure all that we are experiencing.
Dreams allow us to look up at the stars and believe that yes, this shall pass and this greater thing will take its place.
They ignite us with faith.
#4 – Steady Ground
We are not in our bunker anymore. Life is sort of going on, as we live in the center of the country and all the activity is in the south. It is surreal.
Last Week: AN Update from a friend In israel
We have all seen the images as the events in the Middle East continue to unfold.
If this isn’t a reminder to bless the ground we are on right now, I do not know what is. We do not have to take our safety for granted. Not one moment of it.
I have many friends who have lost their jobs and homes this past year. Others who have been victims of earthquakes and floods. Lives are shaken from one day to the next.
It can happen to anyone of us.
So if you are on steady ground right now. If you have a roof over your head, a bed to sleep in, and are able to easily provide the basic needs for your loved ones, give thanks.
You are blessed.
#5 – All Children
Children are our hope. Their laughter, fearlessness, passion, compassion sponteneity.
Whether you are a parent, grandparent, aunt or uncle, or don’t have children in your life:
- be grateful every time you hear a little voice or a little giggle. It is the most beautiful music.
- Feel blessed every time you see a child dancing in the middle of the town square, hotel lobby, or train station. It is candy for your soul.
Their light, when permitted to shine, is contagious.
I am so grateful for the children of this world.
May there come a day when every child can live with as much peace as they offer to the world.
#6 – The Possibility to Give
We often perceive gratitude as a result of something we receive.
However, let’s not forget how much beauty our heart receives when we give to others.
Just One Thank You
It is odd this digital world.
We have potential access to so many people and it often leaves us feeling so sad and alone.
I am not a huge fan of social media.
I use it because I have this super huge desire to connect.
But as a creator, it can feel extremely lonely sometimes. Often it feels as if nobody is there.
At the mercy of algorithms, maybe nobody is.
I felt like I offered so much more of myself when I was selling personal growth books at festivals. People shared their stories freely and I offered a word, once in a while I suggested a book.
The same thing as a personal trainer. I always listened and connected just as much as I trained.
But this blogging thing.
I often question whether I am offering anything to anyone. Am I connecting? Should I continue?
Then I get ONE THANK YOU from someone. One I really needed this today. One this resonates with me. One you are not alone.
And I am reminded, it is not about the numbers.
One, once in a while, can be enough to fill my heart with gratitude.
This is the power of giving.
#7 – Our Will
Our Will. This circles us back to the top of our list.
Every day we need to reinforce this desire to live our lives in the fullest way we possibly can.
With the difficulty, challenges, frustration, grief, loss, and fear we need to reset our purpose and remind ourselves of our will to be alive.
May we thank our will every morning when we rise and every evening before we rest our heads.
People do not die from illness. They die from the lack of desire to continue the daily fight.
It may sound harsh referring to life like this – a fight.
But fighting is not bad when you are doing it for the right stuff.
Living life to the fullest – with passion and gratitude – is definitely right.
Great things never, ever arrive without this vital energy.
And it is when you lose the will to fight, you lose the essence of life.
Your Gratitude List
So we have a tendency of making negative mental lists all the time – usually things that we have no control over.
This keeps us trapped in a tiny, dark space because when we feel out of control, our light is unable to find the passageway to shine through.
A gratitude list redirects our focus on what is beautiful and abundant in our lives.
Here are two gratitude journaling prompts for us.
Beauty Hunter List
The priest in Napoli is a beauty hunter.
Don Loffredo says this about the mafia: Don’t fight it, cure it, by offering something beautiful in its place.
Jen Pastiloff, From the book, On being human
I love using this expression for the name of my gratitude list.
I borrow Beauty Hunting from Jen Pastiloff’s memoir, On Being Human.
Jen says that there is beauty everywhere and when you start noticing it you cannot unsee it. She is the empress of beauty hunting.
Every day write down 3 to 10 things that you are grateful for. The beauty you notice. The beauty you hunt for.
You can also include things that are seemingly bad, but you, like Don Lofreddo, transformed into something positive.
A To Z List
Make a list using of all the letters in the alphabet, in order from A to Z.
For each letter you list something beginning with that letter that you’re grateful for.
You can:
- be ambitious and do all the letters every day or once a week or
- choose just one letter a day to write what you are grateful for in your journal. When you finish the alphabet, begin again.
When done with consistency making a gratitude list will reinforce your self-love and feeling of abundant joy.
Be patient. It takes time.
Afterall, your negativity did not grow on you overnight. 😉
Final Note – A Headstart on Gratitude This Year
Gratitude is an every day practice. But I always like to get a headstart on the holidays by pumping up my gratitude practice this time of the year.
So expect me to be speaking alot about gratitude these next months.
This year, it feels even more important.
There is a heavy energy floating in the air and I want to believe that as a collective we are motivated to do whatever we can to protect the light.
As we feel this suffering of humanity grow, may we hold one another.
Differences, imperfections, weaknesses and wrongly held emotions,
May we transform, yolk, and hold even closer what we have – all that we have. Our love and joy – with so much attention, care, and gratitude, as we hold every precious life in our heart.
May we pray for those who need to be shined upon.
And may they find the courage to find the blessings, maybe in a less common place, and for just one moment today.
Resources
MEDITATIONS FOR JOY & GRATITUDE
- THE JOY OF BREATH Guided Breath Meditation, 10 Minutes
- I CHOOSE TO FEEL GRATEFUL TODAY Guided Meditation, 10 Minutes
- FEEL JOY AGAIN Guided Meditation, 7 Minutes
FURTHER READING FOR PROTECTING ABUNDANCY
- HOW TO BECOME A HAPPIER HUMAN BEING – 4 Truths About Arriving At the Happy Life
- 7 MINDSET MAKEOVERS – How To Switch From Self-Sabotaging To Best Self
- 10 DAILY REMINDER THAT YOU NEED TO USE TO LOVE YOURSELF, BE GRATEFUL & FEEL EMPOWERED
- HOW TO LIVE IN THE FLOW – Accepting the Impermanence of Life
- LIVING WITH INTENTION – Why Setting Intentions Is The Most Important Thing I Do Every Morning
