Even when times are difficult, to gratefully greet the new day when opening the window blinds is always possible, even if I sometimes then have to remind myself to not forget this base-giving beginning of the day. Or silently giving thanks to people I meet for their being here with me; or sending out grateful thoughts and wishes related to people or projects close to my heart. It helps clearly to be less occuppied in mind and heart by the difficulties at hand. Thank you for this question.
The pain got so bad
that I stopped doing things . . .
getting my exercise,
working in the gardens,
and maintaining the house.
I gained unwanted weight
and lost energy for anything that required movement.
I even broke down
and bought a walker for a dollar
on the last day our Salvation Army store was open.
I went in to pain management for shots . . .
but they didn’t help.
Doctors wouldn’t help
and would give me nothing but muscle relaxers.
They didn’t work either.
Every time I walked
I could both hear and feel
the scraping of bone on bone in my hip . . .
I’d sit on the sofa
and look around the living room
that we were right in the middle of plastering,
and I thought,
“oh, what a mess everything is.”
I stopped doing the weekly grocery shop too . . .
it was just too much.
I had to admit that I was in trouble,
and rapidly losing ground in the gratitude department,
so as I sat with my daily journal,
I gritted my teeth
and dug deep,
relying on my Practice to help pull me back up.
I’d been slipping,
I could see,
and finding ‘tried and true’ things to be grateful for,
but didn’t feel truly grateful at all.
That day,
coming face to face with my journal,
was a moment of realization
that something had to change,
and that was my attitude.
Which I did,
on a dime . . .
my years of Practice coming back in a flash
to support me.
I could better face the truth of things
and take a more assertive part
in my own care.
The day after my last shot
I had an appointment with an orthopedic surgeon
who tore my abductor muscle while testing my legs,
and he told me outright
I needed a hip replacement,
but I had to wait three more months for it
due to the steroids in the recent injection.
Thankfully,
he scheduled me
as his first surgery of the day
after those three months was up,
and I came home the following morning.
Armed with fresh incentives
I went to physical therapy,
did my exercises at home
and within a month
was navigating on my own,
no pain,
no pills,
without the help of either a cane or the walker.
Blessed be . . .
thank you,
dear Universe.
I can walk on my own,
work in the gardens . . .
and I will never take mobility for granted
ever again. ♥
I guess I nurture my gratefulness by trying to be intentional about it, by calling it a practice, and by attempting to be consistent and disciplined with it. I feel like most of the small difficulties are lessened to an extent or even reduced to minor inconveniences. And the bigger difficulties? Well, we’ll just have to wait and see. 😬😁
Practicing every day,
dear Charlie,
is what gets me through the really challenging times.
It’s brain/muscle/heart memory
and without it
I would have kept sinking.
You are courageous
and don’t give yourself enough credit. ♥
When life feels difficult I nurture my gratefulness practice by noticing the things I might otherwise take for granted, such as clean water, my home, clothes and shoes that fit me and that are comfortable, my ability to breathe and move my body, healthy food, coffee and tea, my beloved cats, and the people in my life that I love.
I have so much. Wishing all a gentle and peaceful Friday. 🩵
Gratefulness practice is a catalyst. When I feel down, it brings me back to a calm, even state. When I feel up, it expands and proliferates joy. With time and accumulation, gratefulness nudges my neutral setting to a more present, grateful one. I have trouble saying gratefulness is harder during this kind of time or that … it is a practice for all times in life.
Yes, Drea. I recognize that I’m a fairly even-keeled person, which means I don’t hit low lows and seldom hit high highs. Gratefulness moves the bar up to a higher and better place even when I’m floating in the middle.
An acquaintance once told me that if you examine the things that are difficult in our life, the things we pray and worry about, they are usually what we are also blessed with. I worry about a son’s grades or my husband’s health, but I’m blessed with my son and husband. I have difficulty at work, but I have a job. When it has been really difficult, I have to look beyond that situation. I was unemployed, but I was grateful I could keep my home. That food was available. That we had access to public education. etc.
The quote of the day really hit my heart. At first it seemed like a Pollyanna response. The more I thought about it, looking at the joy in the moment helps me embrace the negative or hardness of the moment.
I nurture my gratefulness practice by reminding my self not to turn a situation into a problem. Perspective is an important tool in gratefulness practice.
I just saw this on FACEBOOK
10 Greatest Life Lessons from Eckhart Tolle
1) The past has no power over the present moment. Realize deeply that the present moment is all you have. Make the NOW the primary focus of your life
2) Some changes look negative on the surface but you will soon realize that space is being created in your life for something new to emerge
3) The primary cause of unhappiness is never the situation but thought about it. Be aware of the thoughts you are thinking. Separate them from the situation, which is always neutral. It is as it is
4) Acknowledging the good that you already have in your life is the foundation for all abundance.
5) Life will give you whatever experience is most helpful for the evolution of your consciousness. How do you know this is the experience you need? Because this is the experience you are having at the moment.
6) Give up defining yourself – to yourself or to others. You won’t die. You will come to life. And don’t be concerned with how others define you. When they define you, they are limiting themselves, so it’s their problem. Whenever you interact with people, don’t be there primarily as a function or a role, but as the field of conscious Presence. You can only lose something that you have, but you cannot lose something that you are
7) Sometimes letting things go is an act of far greater power than defending or hanging on
To love is to recognize yourself in another.
9) Time isn’t precious at all, because it is an illusion. What you perceive as precious is not time but the one point that is out of time: the Now. That is precious indeed. The more you are focused on time—past and future—the more you miss the Now, the most precious thing there is
10) Don’t look for peace. Don’t look for any other state than the one you are in now; otherwise, you will set up inner conflict and unconscious resistance. Forgive yourself for not being at peace. The moment you completely accept your non-peace, your non-peace becomes transmuted into peace. Anything you accept fully will get you there will take you into peace. This is the miracle of surrender.
”The moment you completely accept your non-peace, your non-peace becomes transmuted into peace. Anything you accept fully will get you there will take you into peace. This is the miracle of surrender.”
This is what it’s all about,
dear Carol Ann . . .
this
and the other nine Life Lessons
from Eckhart Tolle.
Just reading them quiets my soul.
I am keeping them here at my table,
where I can read them every day
as part of my Gratitude Practice.
Thank you so much
for putting them out here. ♥
🙏
I like this one a lot: “Some changes look negative on the surface but you will soon realize that space is being created in your life for something new to emerge.”
Yes, I just had this discussion yesterday. To hold off on judging a situation. That it might be a disappointment in the present, or even a real problem, but our perspective is always changing.
Grounding myself in gratitude each morning with breath and movement work is a good start to bringing gratitude forward into the day, come what may. Rabbi Kushner’s quote today inspires me to continue to deepen the practice of ongoing gratefulness.🍁
I nurture it by continuing the practice. Life is going to life, so there will be difficulties, but even amongst them, there are still things to be grateful for. The washing machine. This cup of coffee I’m having. The fact that I woke up to a new day. My breath. It’s easier to remember these days how good life is, even when I come to a crossroads.
We have a newish EV, an Ioniq5. My husband’s name for it is HAL9000. Mine is either Io or WALL-E depending on whether I’m feeling more like mythology or more like technology. I really haven’t named cars in the past; the old Honda Odyssey is Ody (oh-dee), which is hardly original.
I have names for all my bicycles though!
Sweetie: The Specialized Dolce my husband gave me as a gift when we were dating. For those who don’t speak French, “dolce” means sweet.
Mary Poppins: The upright city bike I bought as a present for myself when I took a leap and took a new job that meant moving us to Seattle so I could run the statewide bike advocacy nonprofit. I felt like Mary Poppins pedaling along in the upright posture rather than down on the handlebars of road bike Sweetie.
Tessa: Short for Tessaract, this one is a folding bike. Named with the help of a Seattle bike person I connected with via Twitter, back when that was still a good place.
Zelda: The most recent addition, my e-bike purchased in 2019. Her full name is Zelda Keen the Peach Machine, inspired by my daughters asking about her paint color (Georgia Peach) and me remembering that in high school I used the phrase “peachy keen” possibly too often.
Not looking at my circumstances but realizing my capabilities. Bring it back to the breath, always the breath. This to shall pass just as the clouds across the horizon. And remember this song line from Hunter/Garcia “Every silver lining has a touch of grey.”
Peace, Love & Light.
To nurture my gratitude even in difficult times, I look forward to what I am blessed to have. To be aware of that, I give myself a pause, observe, and reflect. Finally, I am good to go with a grateful mind. Happy Friday to everyone!
My Ngoc, Appreciating simpler pleasures is one of my 2 quarterly zen goals for Q2 from the Paw Mu Collective Zen system. Being grateful for what I have is one of the benefits from the PM collective system. Dopamine-hunting is when I start getting greedy. My ego loves doing that. The other quarterly zen goal is to take care of myself to serve others. This builds on from my answer about “Loc Gets Straight to the Point”, “Marloc 9X”, and the 11 Zen Principles.
Thanks to everything I have learned here I think my grateful practices increases when life feels difficult. It wasn’t always that way. Life brought me here and I have handled hardship better because of gratefulness.
I think after a pause and a breath it’s easier to be grateful during the hard times. It’s during the everyday I forget sometimes to take the pause and breath of gratefulness.
Deann, this is one of the thoughts that came to me this morning as I was thinking about this question. Challenges seem to bring out my gratitude. As Joseph often says, we can look at our capabilities rather than our circumstances, and be grateful for the potential that lies within.
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Even when times are difficult, to gratefully greet the new day when opening the window blinds is always possible, even if I sometimes then have to remind myself to not forget this base-giving beginning of the day. Or silently giving thanks to people I meet for their being here with me; or sending out grateful thoughts and wishes related to people or projects close to my heart. It helps clearly to be less occuppied in mind and heart by the difficulties at hand. Thank you for this question.
The pain got so bad
that I stopped doing things . . .
getting my exercise,
working in the gardens,
and maintaining the house.
I gained unwanted weight
and lost energy for anything that required movement.
I even broke down
and bought a walker for a dollar
on the last day our Salvation Army store was open.
I went in to pain management for shots . . .
but they didn’t help.
Doctors wouldn’t help
and would give me nothing but muscle relaxers.
They didn’t work either.
Every time I walked
I could both hear and feel
the scraping of bone on bone in my hip . . .
I’d sit on the sofa
and look around the living room
that we were right in the middle of plastering,
and I thought,
“oh, what a mess everything is.”
I stopped doing the weekly grocery shop too . . .
it was just too much.
I had to admit that I was in trouble,
and rapidly losing ground in the gratitude department,
so as I sat with my daily journal,
I gritted my teeth
and dug deep,
relying on my Practice to help pull me back up.
I’d been slipping,
I could see,
and finding ‘tried and true’ things to be grateful for,
but didn’t feel truly grateful at all.
That day,
coming face to face with my journal,
was a moment of realization
that something had to change,
and that was my attitude.
Which I did,
on a dime . . .
my years of Practice coming back in a flash
to support me.
I could better face the truth of things
and take a more assertive part
in my own care.
The day after my last shot
I had an appointment with an orthopedic surgeon
who tore my abductor muscle while testing my legs,
and he told me outright
I needed a hip replacement,
but I had to wait three more months for it
due to the steroids in the recent injection.
Thankfully,
he scheduled me
as his first surgery of the day
after those three months was up,
and I came home the following morning.
Armed with fresh incentives
I went to physical therapy,
did my exercises at home
and within a month
was navigating on my own,
no pain,
no pills,
without the help of either a cane or the walker.
Blessed be . . .
thank you,
dear Universe.
I can walk on my own,
work in the gardens . . .
and I will never take mobility for granted
ever again. ♥
I nurture it by being mindful of all the wonderful gifts that I’m given by the universe every single moment.
I guess I nurture my gratefulness by trying to be intentional about it, by calling it a practice, and by attempting to be consistent and disciplined with it. I feel like most of the small difficulties are lessened to an extent or even reduced to minor inconveniences. And the bigger difficulties? Well, we’ll just have to wait and see. 😬😁
Practicing every day,
dear Charlie,
is what gets me through the really challenging times.
It’s brain/muscle/heart memory
and without it
I would have kept sinking.
You are courageous
and don’t give yourself enough credit. ♥
When life feels difficult I nurture my gratefulness practice by noticing the things I might otherwise take for granted, such as clean water, my home, clothes and shoes that fit me and that are comfortable, my ability to breathe and move my body, healthy food, coffee and tea, my beloved cats, and the people in my life that I love.
I have so much. Wishing all a gentle and peaceful Friday. 🩵
This, Mary. This. Peace and calm to you as well.
♥️
Gratefulness practice is a catalyst. When I feel down, it brings me back to a calm, even state. When I feel up, it expands and proliferates joy. With time and accumulation, gratefulness nudges my neutral setting to a more present, grateful one. I have trouble saying gratefulness is harder during this kind of time or that … it is a practice for all times in life.
Yes, Drea. I recognize that I’m a fairly even-keeled person, which means I don’t hit low lows and seldom hit high highs. Gratefulness moves the bar up to a higher and better place even when I’m floating in the middle.
“Gratefulness practice is a catalyst.”
Well said,
dear Drea,
and said with feeling. ♥
An acquaintance once told me that if you examine the things that are difficult in our life, the things we pray and worry about, they are usually what we are also blessed with. I worry about a son’s grades or my husband’s health, but I’m blessed with my son and husband. I have difficulty at work, but I have a job. When it has been really difficult, I have to look beyond that situation. I was unemployed, but I was grateful I could keep my home. That food was available. That we had access to public education. etc.
I agree with Barb. Great insight, Christine.
What a wonderful insight. Thank you for this, Christine.
The quote of the day really hit my heart. At first it seemed like a Pollyanna response. The more I thought about it, looking at the joy in the moment helps me embrace the negative or hardness of the moment.
So true, Yram.
I nurture my gratefulness practice by reminding my self not to turn a situation into a problem. Perspective is an important tool in gratefulness practice.
I just saw this on FACEBOOK
10 Greatest Life Lessons from Eckhart Tolle
1) The past has no power over the present moment. Realize deeply that the present moment is all you have. Make the NOW the primary focus of your life
2) Some changes look negative on the surface but you will soon realize that space is being created in your life for something new to emerge
3) The primary cause of unhappiness is never the situation but thought about it. Be aware of the thoughts you are thinking. Separate them from the situation, which is always neutral. It is as it is
4) Acknowledging the good that you already have in your life is the foundation for all abundance.
5) Life will give you whatever experience is most helpful for the evolution of your consciousness. How do you know this is the experience you need? Because this is the experience you are having at the moment.
6) Give up defining yourself – to yourself or to others. You won’t die. You will come to life. And don’t be concerned with how others define you. When they define you, they are limiting themselves, so it’s their problem. Whenever you interact with people, don’t be there primarily as a function or a role, but as the field of conscious Presence. You can only lose something that you have, but you cannot lose something that you are
7) Sometimes letting things go is an act of far greater power than defending or hanging on
To love is to recognize yourself in another.
9) Time isn’t precious at all, because it is an illusion. What you perceive as precious is not time but the one point that is out of time: the Now. That is precious indeed. The more you are focused on time—past and future—the more you miss the Now, the most precious thing there is
10) Don’t look for peace. Don’t look for any other state than the one you are in now; otherwise, you will set up inner conflict and unconscious resistance. Forgive yourself for not being at peace. The moment you completely accept your non-peace, your non-peace becomes transmuted into peace. Anything you accept fully will get you there will take you into peace. This is the miracle of surrender.
”The moment you completely accept your non-peace, your non-peace becomes transmuted into peace. Anything you accept fully will get you there will take you into peace. This is the miracle of surrender.”
This is what it’s all about,
dear Carol Ann . . .
this
and the other nine Life Lessons
from Eckhart Tolle.
Just reading them quiets my soul.
I am keeping them here at my table,
where I can read them every day
as part of my Gratitude Practice.
Thank you so much
for putting them out here. ♥
🙏
So much good stuff here. Thank you Carol Ann. 🙏😁
I like this one a lot: “Some changes look negative on the surface but you will soon realize that space is being created in your life for something new to emerge.”
Yes, I just had this discussion yesterday. To hold off on judging a situation. That it might be a disappointment in the present, or even a real problem, but our perspective is always changing.
Grounding myself in gratitude each morning with breath and movement work is a good start to bringing gratitude forward into the day, come what may. Rabbi Kushner’s quote today inspires me to continue to deepen the practice of ongoing gratefulness.🍁
I nurture it by continuing the practice. Life is going to life, so there will be difficulties, but even amongst them, there are still things to be grateful for. The washing machine. This cup of coffee I’m having. The fact that I woke up to a new day. My breath. It’s easier to remember these days how good life is, even when I come to a crossroads.
“Life is going to life” — yes, that’s a new quote to me and I like it. Good quotes today in the community!
I nurture my gratefulness practice daily so it has become ritual.
TGIF!
https://nationaltoday.com/national-name-your-car-day/
We have a newish EV, an Ioniq5. My husband’s name for it is HAL9000. Mine is either Io or WALL-E depending on whether I’m feeling more like mythology or more like technology. I really haven’t named cars in the past; the old Honda Odyssey is Ody (oh-dee), which is hardly original.
I have names for all my bicycles though!
Sweetie: The Specialized Dolce my husband gave me as a gift when we were dating. For those who don’t speak French, “dolce” means sweet.
Mary Poppins: The upright city bike I bought as a present for myself when I took a leap and took a new job that meant moving us to Seattle so I could run the statewide bike advocacy nonprofit. I felt like Mary Poppins pedaling along in the upright posture rather than down on the handlebars of road bike Sweetie.
Tessa: Short for Tessaract, this one is a folding bike. Named with the help of a Seattle bike person I connected with via Twitter, back when that was still a good place.
Zelda: The most recent addition, my e-bike purchased in 2019. Her full name is Zelda Keen the Peach Machine, inspired by my daughters asking about her paint color (Georgia Peach) and me remembering that in high school I used the phrase “peachy keen” possibly too often.
🙂
I had a car once,
named ‘Persephone’,
and another called ‘Newton’,
dear Michele. 🙂
Not looking at my circumstances but realizing my capabilities. Bring it back to the breath, always the breath. This to shall pass just as the clouds across the horizon. And remember this song line from Hunter/Garcia “Every silver lining has a touch of grey.”
Peace, Love & Light.
Silver is grey,
dear Joseph,
with a glimmer of starshine. ♥
To nurture my gratitude even in difficult times, I look forward to what I am blessed to have. To be aware of that, I give myself a pause, observe, and reflect. Finally, I am good to go with a grateful mind. Happy Friday to everyone!
My Ngoc, Appreciating simpler pleasures is one of my 2 quarterly zen goals for Q2 from the Paw Mu Collective Zen system. Being grateful for what I have is one of the benefits from the PM collective system. Dopamine-hunting is when I start getting greedy. My ego loves doing that. The other quarterly zen goal is to take care of myself to serve others. This builds on from my answer about “Loc Gets Straight to the Point”, “Marloc 9X”, and the 11 Zen Principles.
Thanks to everything I have learned here I think my grateful practices increases when life feels difficult. It wasn’t always that way. Life brought me here and I have handled hardship better because of gratefulness.
I think after a pause and a breath it’s easier to be grateful during the hard times. It’s during the everyday I forget sometimes to take the pause and breath of gratefulness.
Deann, this is one of the thoughts that came to me this morning as I was thinking about this question. Challenges seem to bring out my gratitude. As Joseph often says, we can look at our capabilities rather than our circumstances, and be grateful for the potential that lies within.