Actions Required
Today I am grateful for warm blankets, understanding friends, the farmers and other workers who help bring food to our table. Living gratefully, I give thanks to those who have taught me so much about pausing to see the good in myself, others, and the world around us.
I am especially thinking today of my friends Terrie and Mike, so important early on in my recovery, helping motivate and inspire me to begin looking for the good, to start the process of getting unstuck from my default mode of self-pity.
Reflecting on another year winding down, I am also reflecting on what gratitude practice has brought into my life for nearly thirty years now. It first enhanced my recovery from alcoholism, and was a key to that recovery blossoming in new ways. Living gratefully is a process, and it does require action.
I don’t smoothly sail through life each day unscathed by challenges. Scoffers might say that means practicing grateful living is ineffective. Quite the opposite. When utilized, grateful living practices generate energy, bring clarity, grow compassion, and help me approach the challenges that do arrive.
Nobody goes through life unscathed. Our culture and society, driven even more the last decade by images and comments on social media, tell us that we can avoid pain, get the latest conveniences, and look a certain way. I counter with these: pain is one of our best teachers, and also unavoidable in a life well-lived. The latest conveniences take our time and money, when the most convenient source of peace is stepping outdoors, or pausing to breathe. I don’t care what you look like or what you are wearing. I want to know what is in your head, heart, and soul.
Yes, action is required. Call it work if you want, but my experience tells me it is not drudgery.
And action need not be movement. Sitting still can be profound, especially if you rarely do.
Action also brings healthier thoughts. Those of us who are prone to overthinking and overdoing know the vital importance of arriving at kinder and gentler thoughts. Slow me down!
Some of the actions I have taken and continue to take include: keeping a gratitude journal, writing gratitude letters to others, A-Z gratitude lists, tuning into one or more of my senses as I walk or run, using writing, texts, and social media as platforms to share about the wonder, awe, and simplicity of noticing daily gifts freely given to us by a loving Universe, practicing mindfulness and meditation so I can pay better attention, hosting monthly Rivertown Gratefulness Gatherings.
The list goes on. I try to engage in a handful of practices daily. In my next post, I will share some helpful links. Start simple. That’s all it takes. Action required. Results guaranteed.
Though blunt, I believe this: “If you keep doing what you have always done, you will keep getting what you have always gotten.” And, if I sit around waiting for the world to change, I will be waiting a long time. Outside factors do impact me, but my transformation comes from within. I only control my own attitude and actions. Let me focus my efforts here, within.
