How to Go from Stuck to Full Speed Ahead
SPIRIT AND INSPIRATION
I love the benefits one receives as one ages. Things that used to upset me no longer do. Our perspective changes to reveal an amazing unfoldment of life that could only have been designed by a Higher Power/God/Supreme Being/Source or whatever you choose to call it. So many things have become clear as a bell, confusion taking a back seat. And one truth has revealed itself making my life so full and wonderful: A grateful heart is an open heart. An open heart allows us to welcome in good relationships, good experiences and a happier life.
So many of my earlier years were spent experiencing angst over crazy things. I worried about so many things that ended up being inconsequential or things that worked themselves out perfectly, even though I didn’t think so at the time. But with the perspective that time can give you, things ended up perfectly perfect.
A dear friend of mine recently shared about a workshop she attended and they were asked as part of the workshop to start each day writing down things they were grateful for. She told me it was making a huge difference in her life. They were not to repeat things day after day but rather find new things to write down. And she had not had a bit of trouble finding new things every day.
This was a new twist on the gratitude practice which by now has become a well honed habit for me. So I began to try it and by gum, she is right. Once you dive into this practice it is simple to find new things every day to be thankful for.
Another friend said we also have to be thankful for those things that aren’t so great but that lead us to a new understanding, or a new experience or a new perspective. And she is right as well. Being thankful for our challenges is harder, much harder, but a great practice. I have found that giving thanks for problems, worries and challenges, while hard, helps to lighten them somehow and I often find I see new opportunities within them as I bless them and say a humble “thank you”.
There is much written about gratitude these days but how grateful are you? What is your gratitude practice and how faithful are you to it? Do you give thanks only when things go your way? Or are you able to accept your troubles as teachers and way finders?
Understanding the power and wisdom of a gratitude practice will lead you to a new reality. If you don’t do it already, begin each day with a litany of things you give thanks for that day. And continue throughout the day as you recognize your blessings, however small. I promise you your life will change.
INSPIRATION
“Gratitude is an opener of locked up blessings.” ~ Marianne Williamson
“Most of the greatest speeches I have ever given, have been in the dedicated silence of my actions.” ~ Steve Maraboli
“Gratitude turns what we have into enough.” ~unknown
“If the only prayer you said in your whole life was, “thank you,” that would suffice.” ~Meister Eckhart
“Praise the bridge that carried you over.” ~George Colman
“The struggle ends when the gratitude begins.” ~Neale Donald Walsch
“If you want to turn your life around, try thankfulness. It will change your life mightily.” ~Gerald Good