CHANGING MOODS WITH GRATITUDE

"Gratitude is the memory of the heart." 

~ Jean Baptiste Massieu ~

I am grateful for my health and for small pleasures; for Nature, people, conversation, solitude, and the feeling of getting into bed at the end of a long day. I am grateful for chocolate, soft molasses cookies, and stargazer lilies. I am grateful to be married to my best friend, and for things always having a way of working out. I am grateful for the sun, for stars on a clear night, and crisp, fresh mornings.
     When I feel funky, I can start anywhere and focus on what makes me grateful, and it builds on itself, and before long, I start to feel grateful, and blessed with blessings, and just all around better from the inside out.

Being grateful makes me feel good.

BE LIKE A BABBLING BROOK

"If God had wanted to be a big secret, He would not have invented babbling brooks and whispering pines." 

~ Robert Brault ~

We live cluttered lives with cluttered minds and don't even know it, busy as we are keeping up with our daily demands and desires. Creating open space, both internally and externally can be a conduit for a sense of relaxation and ease. With distance and perspective comes a slowing of time, an increased appreciation for each moment, and a disinterest in multi-tasking to get things done.
     Life is meant to have a bit of a meandering quality to it and not be so jam-packed and pressure driven. It's a babbling brook navigating meadows rather than a blast from a fire hose, and yet, so often, that's how we experience it. Let's not. Let's learn to babble a bit, and trickle around stones and over mossy banks.

I slow down and create space in my life for meandering. 

INTO THE FUTURE

"Tomorrow is fresh." 

~ L.M. Montgomery ~

The future awaits us, and blindly, we travel towards it. We press forward, full of courage and faith that it will play out, that we will be unexpectedly blessed by angels along the way, and that we will find what we're looking for.
     Adventure is guaranteed, and life lessons. Everything else we create for ourselves as we go.

I welcome the daily mix of intention and surprise, and keep my good humor as I travel the road. 

BEING FRESH AND NEW

"Life is always a rich and steady time when you are waiting for something to happen or to hatch."

~ EB White ~

If we want to create something new in our lives, we have to let go of everything old and tired first. If we try to build on top of what's been there for years and years we will just get more of the same. A fresh start requires a clean slate and an inner emptiness, space to grow, and an open heart and mind. New is not more or better, it's new! And it takes some clearing on our part to make way for what wants to come into being in our lives.

I let go of all that has historically constrained me, and open to the new! 

THE POWER OF WILDFLOWERS

"Flowers... are a proud assertion that a ray of beauty outvalues all the utilities of the world. " 

~ Ralph Waldo Emerson ~

Wildflowers cling to rocks and grow out of crevices at the top of windy mountains. They grow on dusty roadsides, and in the most inhospitable places available- the places where no grass can take root. They are paupers when it comes to growing spots, and yet, there they are, brightening the landscape with their color and their cheerful blooms.
     We can become so precious in the fulfillment of our needs. Let's take a lesson from wildflowers, and bloom wherever we land.

I blow in the wind and bloom brightly like wildflowers.

CHOICE AND FREEDOM

"Confront your dream and... decide, once and for all, if you want it." 

~ Joe Kita ~

We are more tangled up in our pasts than we realize. Thoughts, beliefs, images, and hurts haunt our every step, dictate our actions, and impede our progress, such that we become an accumulation of everything that's ever happened to us. We become a "happend to" instead of a happening.
     In order to re-claim our power, we have to recognize that we have added all kinds of personal significance to the historical facts, such as they are, and we can stay stuck in the way it all currently exists for us, or choose to create a new significance any time we like.
     Choice is our birthright. Choice and freedom.

I live free from the tangles of the past.

BEING CURIOUS

"A sense of curiosity is nature's original school of education."

~ Smiley Blanton ~

We make assumptions about other people based on who we are and how we are feeling. Consequently, the vast majority of our judgments are in error, based on our mood and our mindset rather than truth itself.
     Let's recognize that what we are certain we know about others may not be completely accurate, listen free from internal dialog, and be willing to clearly see and hear who is actually there.

I open to curiosity and make room in life for what I don't know I don't know.

LIVING WITH PURPOSE

"Men, like nails, lose their usefulness when they lose direction and begin to bend." 

~ Walter Savage Landor ~

Having something to work towards satisfies the soul. To be floundering about aimlessly is uncomfortable, untenable, and unwise. Let's strive to some purpose, whether personal or worldly, and enjoy the pleasure of a life on track and with aim.

Having a purpose inspires my life.

CREATING A CLEARING FOR NEW POSSIBILITY

"Be melting snow. Wash yourself of yourself." 

~ Rumi ~

Letting go of physical stuff we have been holding onto for years is an interesting process. It is both freeing and revealing- freeing in that we let go and revealing in that we have all kinds of fret about what we might need in the future, or what we might miss once it's gone.
     Healthy living is a continuous process of release and renewal, and we can't experience either if we won't disperse the energy that is stuck in our things.

I let go of all my inessential physical stuff.

DIGNITY AND PERSONAL EMPOWERMENT

"The way to make people trustworthy is to trust them." 

~ Ernest Hemingway ~

One of the greatest gifts we can give to another is to trust them with their own autonomy, and not to be controlling or manipulative or think we know better than they do what's best. When we allow others their dignity, and allow them to be responsible for their work and their time, we allow them to shine. We empower them.
     The opposite of this is diminishment and discouragement. When we are always being told what to do, and when and how to do it, we lose enthusiasm and go flat.

I empower others by trusting them.

STEPPING UP

"Be what you are." 

~ Julius Charles Hare ~

Mighty spirit,

Born to fly free,

Locked in tangles

of projected misery.

Mighty spirit

Born to honor truth

Locked in silence

And being aloof.

Mighty spirit

Full of heart, full of life

Courageously step

into the light.

I stand for freedom.

TAKING A STAND

"I will not ask that you nor you approve. The wild thyme is itself nor asks consent of rose nor reed." 

~ Muriel Strode ~

It feels safe to hide, and yet, by hiding, we are inauthentic. We shrink from our lives and our choices and from being who we really are. We make ourselves wrong and guilty by avoiding what's uncomfortable. Let's have the courage to stand up, to stand out, and to stand for what we believe in. Let's have the courage to stand for exactly who we are.

I stand for authentic self-expression.

TRUTH AND FREEDOM

"The truth will out." 

~ William Shakespeare ~

To experience peace we have to face facts. We have to be willing to look at what's in front of us. Avoiding reality does not make it go away. Neither does pretending it's something it's not. Only an honest and un-biased view of what is can free us from what is. It seems unlikely, it seems un-necessary- we often don't want to face what's there, and yet, it is only in looking clearly, and in honestly seeing, that we are set free.

I take off my blinders and see.

READY, SET, CHOOSE

"Good instincts usually tell you what to do long before your head has figured it out." 

~ Micheal Burke ~

How can we act on knowing that a part of us doesn't want to know, because it means we will have to face something that we don't want to face? It seems easier to squash down our instincts, and play at everything being all right, but there is in-authenticity in this, and a price to pay down the road.
     We must choose a path. That is our responsibility. We can choose to go along and get along, or we can choose to honor our truth. And the action we take in making our choice is the very thing that will free us.

I choose which path to take forward every day that I live. 

IN THE NAME OF PROGRESS

"You've got to know when to hold 'em, know when to fold 'em, know when to walk away, and know when to run..." 

~ Kenny Rodgers ~

I'm an expert at normalizing the abnormal and making the best of things. It's something I learned to do young, and have been doing all my life. When others are ready to cut bait, I am still looking and pretending that all is well, that it's really ok, that maybe it's not as bad as it seems. And at times, this has its advantages, and at times, it serves me somewhat well.
     But other times, it's a recipe for a kind of self-punishment, a make-it-work-or-else kind of approach to life that actually hampers growth and constrains progress instead of promoting it.

I commit to clear sight, honest appraisal, and right guidance.

GUILT FREE LIVING

"Guilt is always hungry- don't let it consume you." 

~ Terri Guillemets ~

Guilt destroys the quality of life. It robs us of freedom and ease. It harps at us, scolding. It's full of shoulds and self-doubt and restriction and fear.
     Guilt is toxic and constrains us in ways so deep they are beyond our understanding. It makes us be in the world in ways that are not authentic or sincere.

I release the burden of guilt and live free.

USING LANGUAGE TO CREATE A WORLD

"I love the swirl and swing of words as they tangle with human emotions." 

~ James Michener ~

Language has power and words create our reality more than we realize. The immense weight we generate with all the things we "have" to do can be energetically shifted quite easily. Observe the difference:
1. I have to (or should) work out. (Burden)
2. I want to work out. (Pleasure)
3. I am going to work out. (Power)
4. I could work out. (Possibility)
     And there are other options as well, the option of choice itself, and gratitude- that we can do anything at all that we can do.
     So let's bring awareness to our language, and realize how our use or abuse of it is impacting our day.

I choose my words with consciousness and care.

EVOLUTION BY DEGREES

"Very little grows on jagged rock. Be ground. Be crumbled, so wildflowers will come up where you are." 

~ Rumi ~

The rhythm of life we are living is not the only rhythm of life there is. Time and experience can be cyclical, and circular, and topsy turvy all over the map rather than linear, although that's not necessarily how it feels in the business world where all is deadline driven and seemingly so urgent.
     And yet, all things, even business projects, grow as in nature, by degrees, by the sun, and by the season. Let's align ourselves to these natural rhythms and allow our lives and projects to evolve naturally rather than be born by insistence.

I embrace the natural unfolding of life and myself.

CLAIMING INDEPENDENCE

"Work in the invisible world at least as much as you do in the visible." 

~ Rumi ~

I've spent most of my life being co-dependent- worrying what others are thinking, feeling punished by their silence, creating criticism out of thin air, but I'm done with it. Right now, in this moment, I claim my independence from the opinions of others, whether real or imagined. I act with love, choose with care, and live my best life being my best self. If others rally behind me I welcome it, and if some are flatly opposed, that's ok too. I'll take each relationship as it comes, deal with the facts as they arise, and turn off all creative speculation about what things may mean or not mean.

I live free from co-dependence. 

THE LITTLE GIRL WHO MADE A DIFFERENCE

"You are only as beautiful as your last action." 

~ Stephen Richards ~

In line at Costco there is so much resignation. Exhausted bodies labor away from the cashiers with full carts, at the registers, serious, worried faces process their debit cards; those arriving and ready to check out nervously scan the aisles to ascertain which is fastest.
     And in the middle of it all, a little girl in white short leggings and a yellow tent-top is smiling and dancing. She's leaning over a stack of water bottle cases and then opening her arms to the sky. And she's making the adults who are with her smile as well.
     Most of the people around her are oblivious. I enjoy her antics. She makes me smile too.

Whatever I do has an effect on those around me.