Gratitude Day 13

Welcome To Day #13 of 21 Days of Gratitude

Here is a quotation to ponder.

“If you would stop analyzing everything and just look for things to appreciate; in other words, if you could just decide to play that game, look for things to appreciate, you would live happily ever after.” — Wisdom of Abrahamhttp://www.abraham-hicks.com

I ALWAYS FIND WHAT I’M LOOKING FOR …

… so instead of looking for reasons to feel bad, I’m always looking for things that make me feel fabulous, looking for things to rock my world, looking for things to surprise and thrill me, looking for things to appreciate greatly, looking for ways to make everything fun, looking for even more reasons to flow my love. ~ from the author of 500 Confessions

Gratitude Day 12

Welcome To Day #12 of 21 Days of Gratitude

Here is a quotation to ponder.

“…For example, many people are waiting for prosperity. It cannot come in the future. When you honor, acknowledge, and fully accept your present reality - where you are, who you are, what you are doing right now - when you fully accept what you have got, you are grateful for what you have got, grateful for what is, grateful for Being. Gratitude for the present moment and the fullness of life now is true prosperity. It cannot come in the future. Then, in time, that prosperity manifests for you in various ways.” — from The Power of Now by Eckart Tolle

For more on the topic of staying in the present moment, here is an excerpt from The Screwtape Letters,Chapter 15, by C.S. Lewis. If you are unfamiliar with this book, it is a series of letters written by a devil named Screwtape to his apprentice devil named Wormwood regarding the best way to destroy the soul of a man whom they call their "patient". When the devil refers to the "Enemy" he is talking about God. You can find this complete book  free online here: http://www.freebooks2u.com/fantasticfiction/The-Screwtape-Letters.html  

"The humans live in time but our Enemy destines them to eternity. He therefore, I believe, wants them to attend chiefly to two things, to eternity itself, and to that point of time which they call the Present. For the Present is the point at which time touches eternity. Of the present moment, and of it only, humans have an experience analogous to the experience which our Enemy [God] has of reality as a whole; in it alone freedom and actuality are offered them. He would therefore have them continually concerned either with eternity (which means being concerned with Him) or with the Present - either meditating on their eternal union with, or separation from, Himself, or else obeying the present voice of conscience, bearing the present cross, receiving the present grace, giving thanks for the present pleasure.

"Our business is to get them away from the eternal, and from the Present. With this in view, we sometimes tempt a human (say a widow or a scholar) to live in the Past. But this is of limited value, for they have some real knowledge of the past and it has a determinate nature and, to that extent, resembles eternity . . . It is far better to make them live in the Future. Biological necessity makes all their passions point in that direction already, so that thought about the Future inflames hope and fear. Also, it is unknown to them, so that in making them think about it we make them think of unrealities. In a word, the Future is, of all things, the thing least like eternity. It is the most completely temporal part of time - for the Past is frozen and no longer flows, and the Present is all lit up with eternal rays.  . . . Hence nearly all vices are rooted in the future. Gratitude looks to the past and love to the present; fear, avarice, lust, and ambition look ahead. Do not think lust an exception. When the present pleasure arrives, the sin (which alone interests us) is already over. The pleasure is just the part of the process which we regret and would exclude if we could do so without losing the sin; it is the part contributed by the Enemy, and therefore experienced in a Present. The sin, which is our contribution, looked forward.

"To be sure, the Enemy wants men to think of the Future too - just so much as is necessary for now planning the acts of justice or charity which will probably be their duty tomorrow. The duty of planning the morrow's work is today's duty; though its material is borrowed from the future, the duty, like all duties, is in the Present. This is not straw splitting. He does not want men to give the Future their hearts, to place their treasure in it. We do. His ideal is a man who, having worked all day for the good of posterity (if that is his vocation), washes his mind of the whole subject, commits the issue to Heaven, and returns at once to the patience or gratitude demanded by the moment that is passing over him. But we want a man hag-ridden by the Future - haunted by visions of an imminent heaven or hell upon earth - ready to break the Enemy's commands in the present if by so doing we make him think he can attain the one or avert the other - dependent for his faith on the success or failure of schemes whose end he will not live to see. We [the devils] want a whole race perpetually in pursuit of the rainbow's end, never honest, nor kind, nor happy now, but always using as mere fuel wherewith to heap the altar of the future every real gift which is offered them in the Present.
Are you heaping your present gifts to be wasted on the altar of the future?
Continue your daily list of 5 things that you are grateful for in your Gratitude Journal.

If you want even more awesome goodness about living in the present moment, I highly recommend that you watch this TED talk 

http://www.ted.com/talks/srikumar_rao_plug_into_your_hard_wired_happiness.html

Gratitude Day 11

Welcome to Day #11 of 21 Days of Gratitude   

(Today's post is a compilation from the original 21 Days of Gratitude Project and other additional websites.)

Today we invite you to focus on a wonderful way that you can use “gratitude” to activate your body’s natural relaxation response.

Savor: To appreciate fully; enjoy or relish.

Or, another way of stating it, Mindfulness + Gratitude = Savoring

The choice to slow down, to “savor” something, must be made consciously.  But–once you do–the benefits become very apparent.

You see - stress and happiness cannot co-exist.

Savoring (from http://psychcentral.com/lib/2011/five-pathways-to-happiness/)
"This is “being in the moment, smelling the roses and tasting your coffee,” Siegel said. It’s savoring everyday moments. Mindfulness helps us learn how to savor situations.
Mindfulness involves “training the mind to be more in the present moment,” and to “be open to whatever is happening each moment,” according to Siegel, who’s also a mindfulness expert and author of The Mindfulness Solution: Everyday Practices for Everyday Problems.

savoringpresent participle of sa·vor (Verb)

Verb:

Taste (good food or drink) and enjoy it completely. Enjoy or appreciate (something pleasant) completely, esp. by dwelling on it.

More info »Merriam-Webster - The Free Dictionary

In fact, mindfulness supports each pathway to happiness. Many people have a narrow definition of mindfulness, such as you must banish all thoughts from your mind and become a blank slate. But being mindful is as simple as bringing your attention to walking, instead of continuing to get lost in thoughts about your to-list and what happened yesterday, Siegel said.

This is a skill that you can practice with various exercises. “The same way you can develop physical fitness, you can develop psychological fitness,” Siegel said. Mindfulness exercises help people step out of your thoughts and be fully engaged in the here and now. You can download or play many meditations that can help you to develop mindfulness on Siegel’s website.



According to recent research, we spend almost 47 percent of our time “mind-wandering,” or having thoughts about something other than what we’re currently doing. And this makes us unhappy.
“In fact, how often our minds leave the present and where they tend to go is a better predictor of our happiness than the activities in which we are engaged,” said Matthew A. Killingsworth, one of the study’s researchers, in a statement.

Even something as tedious as shoveling snow can make us feel happy, if we’re fully engaged in it, (savoring) Siegel said. In the same way, something as pleasant as talking to a friend, if your mind is wandering, won’t make you happy."

So, as soon as you find yourself “savoring” something (anything), you have shifted your energy in a powerfully positive way.

Action Steps for this week:

1) We’d invite you to make a commitment to yourself that, a half-dozen times over this coming weekend, you will bring yourself into present moment awareness while you look for opportunities to “savor.”

~ Savor the beauty in the sights aroung you.
~ Really pay attention to the sounds in your environment.
~ Be mindful regarding the family rituals that are most meaningful to you and/or create new ways for your family to relax and savor time together.

As Bonnie Snyder of http://www.serenitypathways.com explains, “Happiness comes from focusing in the moment. That is the magic of savoring.”


2) Mindfulness + Gratitude = Savoring

3) Continue your daily list of 5 things that you are grateful for in your Gratitude Journal.

Elyse

Gratitude Day 5

Welcome To Day #5 of 21 Days of Gratitude

Today's post is a substitution for the original Day 5 from the 21 Days of Gratitude Project. The content comes from:  http://www.sedonameditation.com/GratitudeAttitude.html  and focuses on how gratitude brings us back into alignment with the present moment. I am really happy I found this article because I've been looking for something specific about gratitude and the present moment. Enjoy!

Cultivating the Attitude of Gratitude

Gratitude unlocks the fullness of life.

It turns what we have into enough, and more.

It turns denial into acceptance, chaos to order, and confusion to clarity.

It can turn a meal into a feast, a house into a home, a stranger into a friend.

Gratitude makes sense of our past,

brings peace for today, and creates a vision for tomorrow.

 - Melody Beattie, author of Codependent No More.

When you're feeling grateful, your mind is clear, you have a sweeter relationship to the universe and its creator, and you become more aware of the big picture. The world becomes a friendly place to live. Every moment offers an opportunity for thanks. And every "thank-you" can return you to the present moment (another way to become present to what is REALLY going on.)

Keep coming back to present moment awareness

Every moment offers an opportunity for thanks. And every "thank-you" can return you to the present moment. Gratitude practice for me is about letting go of thinking and welcoming in the present moment. Accepting this moment as it is, and knowing that everything is happening for your evolution is a great practice too. “Faith is born of gratitude,” says Dr. Wattles, “ The grateful mind continually expects good things, and expectation becomes faith.”

You can also practice welcoming the present moment. Receiving. Every moment, every morning, every evening, and every meal is an opportunity to say thank you. A formal prayer isn’t required - easily bring your attention on what you’re grateful for in the moment, it can be a touchstone to the miracles of life that might have gone unnoticed. I often say thank you to the universe, the creator, and its every thing that created this moment. I appreciate the abundance that is present my life. That makes me feels good. 

Keep up the gratitude practice even when you don’t feel particularly grateful

When life is difficult and when you feel sorrow, great anxiety, or if you are dealing with a difficult relationship, choosing to be grateful can transform your perspective, even for a few moments, to one of appreciation and contentment for all that is: both the wonderful and the frustrating. Scientists have found that feeling grateful produces the endorphins in your brain, the same chemicals that reduce stress, lessen pain, and improve your immune functions.

Being grateful puts you in a totally different mindset and energy level, and enables you to reestablish your connection to your source, your spirit. It is impossible to be grateful and unhappy or in fear at the same time. The negativity and anger you had felt begins to dissipate. Peace and possibility envelope you. You can take a deep breath. The struggle stops and your heart calms. An attitude of gratitude and appreciation can trump negative emotions every time. Thank you.    

- Written by Sarah McLean

For today: Focus on the present moment by writing down 5 things you are grateful for today

About the author: Along with her 22 year meditation practice, Sarah McLean has explored world spiritual and cultural traditions: she's been a 2-year resident in a Zen Buddhist monastery, lived in an ashram in India, taught English to Tibetan Buddhist nuns, bicycled along the silk route through Pakistan, meditated in temples in Thailand and Japan, and trekked the Golden Triangle in Asia. Sarah McLean is passionate about teaching and sharing what she’s discovered about the modalities of mind/body health, self awareness and her spiritual journey.  Endorsed by Deepak Chopra and featured in The New York Times, Sarah is the founding director of the Sedona Meditation Training Company, where she teaches meditation and leads meditation retreats.

Read more articles by Sarah McLean