Mental, Emotional and Spiritual Awareness

Mental, Emotional and Spiritual Awareness

The World Has Gone Mad. Be THANKFUL!

Well, just when you thought 2020 couldn’t get any stranger or more stressful, we have something very weird going on with our election. I don’t know about you, but I am feeling such… odd energy in the air. Such a tension that I have never really felt before. It feels like not only is the US going through strange times, but the ENTIRE WORLD is on edge.

We all have two choices right now:

Give in to the darkness and focus our attention on pain, suffering, hardships and turmoil.

Or…

Focus our attention on all of the many things in our lives we have to be grateful for.

Making the second choice is a sign of mental, emotional and spiritual awareness. Being thankful for all of the good in your life not only helps you get through dark times but you then also act as a light for others around you who, for whatever reason, seem unable to see any light and can only fixate on the dark.

I Felt Like Punching Her!

When I was diagnosed with cancer so many, many years ago, I was only in my early 20s, so not really aware yet. A family friend visited me one day after my diagnosis, I suppose to try and cheer me up, and before she left she took my hand, looked in my eye and said, “Don’t forget, you have so much to be grateful for.”

I honest to God felt like punching her in the face and screaming, “ARE YOU OUT OF YOUR BLEEPING MIND? MY DAD WAS KILLED, AND I’VE BEEN GIVEN 6 MONTHS TO LIVE AND YOU THINK I HAVE SOMETHING TO BE GRATEFUL FOR?!!!!!!!!!!!

I think I instead just blinked and said something like, “Okay, thanks.”

Let me tell you something, that woman was so completely right. I found myself in the days and weeks after that exchange noticing all of the “little things” in my life that I loved, that made me happy, that I was, indeed, grateful for.

When I’d eat a food I loved, I realized how amazing it tasted and how grateful I was to have a refrigerator and cupboards full of food. And that I could still eat. I knew of people with different cancers or diseases who were on feeding tubes and couldn’t taste their favorite foods.

When I drove around town, I noticed all of the trees and flowers that I had been taking for granted and how grateful I was for their beauty.

I was grateful for my sense of humor and those I found in others.

I was grateful for my favorite books, one being Love, Medicine and Miracles, by Dr. Bernie Siegel.

I was grateful for my love of music.

I was grateful for my local library that gave me access to resources that helped me save my life.

As I found more and more things that I was truly and sincerely thankful for, even more began to crop up. It was like I became a magnet for stuff that made me thankful. It was a wild few weeks and I will never forget it.

My family friend had been so right, but I did not have the sense to realize it at the time. Even though my heart was broken from losing my dad so suddenly, and I was told I only had a few months to live, I was STILL able to feel such profound joy and gratitude. Amazing.

Your Gratitude List

Gratitude, at first, did not come easy to me. I had to work at it. I had to ALLOW it to come into my life. Let’s be honest, sometimes it just feels good to feel bad. Sometimes we like to stew and feel angry or like a victim. I get it.

But I want to encourage you to begin your own practice of gratitude, and, as they say, “’Tis the season.”

Here’s what I encourage you to do to get started: Commit to spending an hour or so to starting your own gratitude list. Sit there with a pen and paper, or do it on your laptop or phone, and write down every single thing you can think of that you are grateful for. Write down big things and small things.

If you can only think of one or two to start, that’s fine, write them down and spend a few days focusing on those one or two things. The more you focus on what you are grateful for, the more things will most likely come to you. When they do, jot those down as well. Soon you will have a BIG list of all sorts of things you are grateful for.

Keep this gratitude list close by, and on those days when the darkness and craziness of the world starts to creep into your mind and heart, take that list out and remind yourself of all the wonderful things in your life.

I want to leave you with some very powerful words from a Josh Groban song called “Thankful” …

Somedays we forget

To look around us

Somedays we can’t see

The joy that surrounds us

So caught up inside ourselves

We take when we should give.

So for tonight we pray for

What we know can be.

And on this day we hope for

What we still can’t see.

It’s up to us to be the change

And even though we all can still do more

There’s so much to be thankful for.

Look beyond ourselves

There’s so much sorrow

It’s way too late to say

I’ll cry tomorrow

Each of us must find our truth

It’s so long overdue

So for tonight we pray for

What we know can be

And every day we hope for

What we still can’t see

It’s up to us to be the change

And even though we all can still do more

There’s so much to be thankful for.

Even with our differences

There is a place we’re all connected

Each of us can find each other’s light

So for tonight we pray for

What we know can be

And on this day we hope for

What we still can’t see

It’s up to us to be the change

And even though this world needs so much more

There’s so much to be thankful for.

💖