Habitual Gratitude

Today I am grateful for the opportunity to be a chaperone on a Civil Rights trip with students and two other chaperones. I appreciate that the pandemic is at a place where these trips are possible again. Thank you to the scientists who developed the vaccines which are a big reason why our trip is a go. The 8th graders going on the trip have already studied the Holocaust and will soon be discussing the Civil Rights Movement with classmates. I taught high school social studies myself for ten years, with not a lot of time spent on any one historical theme, including this one. I knew a little then. I know more now. I still have so much to learn.  I don't think any of us going on this trip really know what we will be experiencing. You can't know some of these things until you stand on the ground where events took place and are memorialized, see the words and faces of the people who suffered, endured, led.  I have immersed myself in some reading and viewing of people and stories lik...

Living gratefully today, I appreciate the quiet, and the gentle sounds my ears are allowing me to hear. I also appreciate the clementines I have been enjoying and all who helped bring them to me. When an opportunity came up to create written word to honor Black History Month at my school, I set to work. The inspiration for any and all art, all students and staff invited to participate, was this quote from Desmond Tutu:  "My humanity is bound up in yours. For we can only be human together." I am still coming to understand my white privilege and I also know what marginalization feels like. I don't know what it is like to be discriminated against because of my skin color, but I do know what it is like to feel less than, to be invisible. I tapped into my own humanity.  I had already written a poem last fall that became a good start. I built from there. Here is what I created: In Desmond Tutu’s words:  “My humanity is bound up in yours, for we can only be human together.”...

Today I am grateful for sunshine, a nice walk, family time, and good driving weather.  I am especially grateful today for my mom on her 91st birthday today! For the care she receives in the nursing home and the sense of peace she has, at least at times, as perceived by me.  This is the last professional photo taken of my mom. I believe it was taken for the church directory somewhere around four years ago.  I like this picture of her. Her loving warmth comes through and the blues look really nice together. Blue is one of my favorite colors too.  She is more wizened now, often slouching in a recliner in the nursing home lobby. Her left eye sometimes looks red and sore. In other words, she is looking pretty good for 91.  This is the card I picked out for her and read to her when my husband Darcy and I visited yesterday. She isn’t going to remember if I gave her a card or not. She doesn’t remember that 57 years ago at this time, she was pregnant with me, her 11th ch...

Living gratefully today, I appreciate the chance to sleep in a little and have a slower-paced morning. I am also grateful for the mix of colors the morning sky is offering currently.  Add the Healthy Minds app to my gratitude list too. It is one of the two I use for my daily mindfulness and meditation practices. The other one is Insight Timer . Both are free for general use, and for an affordable charge, additional features are made available. I appreciate the features that each offers.  Healthy Minds, created by Dr. Cortland Dahl, was developed at The Center for Healthy Minds at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. Dr. Richard Davidson, a leading expert, professor of Psychology and Psychiatry, and founder of the Center, provides some scientific and research backing for the practices that are so nicely presented by "Cort" and others.  The app moves through five phases of practice. I have completed "Foundations" and "Awareness" and am currently on "Con...

Awareness is the greatest agent for change.  -Eckhart Tolle- A healthy outside starts from the inside.  -Robert Ulrich- One of the meditation apps I use, Insight Timer, gives lovely quotes each time you go into the app. The two above recently followed one after the other. I took note. It is only with inner awareness that I can change my thoughts and actions. Certainly, others help me with that awareness too, but the heavy lifting is done within. After years of struggling to make it a regular habit, mindfulness and meditation are now part of my routine. It is making a significant difference in how I perceive myself and the world around me, just like living gratefully does. Together, the two make my inner sanctum more comfortable and at peace.  Not all the time. I don't think such a constant state is possible. But more comfort and peace more often.  Less thinking that hinders me. Less thinking period. And less thinking clears up more time for awareness. Awareness. Paus...

Living gratefully today, on this Valentine's Day, I embrace the love I have for my husband Darcy, our family, extended families and friends. For strangers who help in unseen ways, for my ever-patient Higher Power. And for myself in new and transformative ways that continue to unfold here in midlife. This is from my first Valentine's Day post on Habitual Gratitude, on February 14, 2013:  I am grateful for the love that I have in my life today; faith, family, friends, self. And for the unconditional love I have most learned from others in recovery from alcoholism and addiction. There were a few years in my life, quite a few, when Valentine's Day served as a reminder, and a painful one at that, of what I didn't have-a husband, a family of my own. But the practice of gratitude helped me reach the point where I could frame it positively. I have always been loved by my family of origin and I have never been friend-less. I came to appreciate the love I did have in my life, not...

“So often times it happens that we live our lives in chains and we never even know we have the key.” (from Already Gone, written by Jack Tempchin and Robb Strandlund, performed by the Eagles)  I was sharing conversation yesterday with some friends. Recovery people supporting one another through laughter, tears, moments of clarity, genuine honesty. Our time together is often like that. We were talking about selfishness and self-centeredness. The kind that got us drunk, kept us drunk, and can still get us stuck in our sobriety.  A little earlier, scrolling social media I came across this quote from Deepak Chopra:  "If you can observe your thoughts, you are obviously not your thoughts. If you can  observe something, you are intrinsically free from your observation."  I was reminded of the significant progress I have made in recent years with just this: not getting stuck in thoughts that only impede me. This is due to several factors, but the biggest is my commitmen...

Word for the Day  Forgiveness says you are given another chance to make a new beginning. -Desmond Tutu- Beautiful words to start a new day. Today is Friday and I do appreciate that, but I also appreciate "Thank God I'm Forgiven."  I wrote about it in a post on September 9, 2013 and it flows nicely with the words above. Here is part of that post: This TGIF was seen on a sign outside a church in my area. TGIF: Thank God I'm forgiven. I am grateful for the role of forgiveness in my life. Others have forgiven me and continue to forgive me. My husband Darcy tops that list because I need his forgiveness more than anyone else's. Other than myself, I am toughest on him. It reminds me of this little prayer: "Lord, make no one's life worse off for having crossed my path today." If I keep that in mind, less forgiveness is needed. Then there's self-forgiveness. I was my own worst enemy through my teen years and my active drinking. I made mistakes. I felt sha...

Today I am grateful for my siblings and our collective life experience. I am especially thinking of my sister Zita today on her milestone 60th birthday! Have a special day Zita!  And I am thinking how this makes me one of only four siblings remaining younger than 60. How the heck did we get from sharing our "Waltons" benches at our kitchen table decades ago to pretty much all of us being eligible for senior discounts at restaurants now? How did we go from farm kids out sledding in the winter and playing ball in the summer, to grandparents watching our grandkids play ball and sled?  Time passes. Lives are lived. We have been very fortunate. Thirteen siblings and twelve of us are plugging along still. Mary Jo made it to 61 before metastatic breast cancer ended her life. Dad was 74 when he died of a heart attack. Mom will turn 91 in just a few days. It is udderly unbelievable when I stop and think about the pace of the years.  That is why I so enjoyed this thrift store find ...

Today I am grateful for a good book in The War I Finally Won  and a good movie in "Just Mercy." The book and the movie were good places to put thoughts and energy this weekend.  My husband Darcy, an ordained deacon in the Episcopal Church, used the phrase "spiritual priorities" in the sermon he gave yesterday. Whenever I walk away from a sermon with more to consider, the preacher has done their job. Thanks Darcy! It gave me pause. What are my spiritual priorities?  *Remembering that I am a spiritual being on a human path, not vice versa, is a good place to start. *Then taking the all-important time to connect with my Higher Power, Universe, Friend, Knowing, God. I know this Source is always with me, but I forget, and I get in my own way often, so I need to make conscious effort to have conscious contact.  *This happens in numerous ways, and can be as brief as a pause. Meditation time to listen and seek. Prayer time to talk and ask. Open awareness to keep tapped into...

If you are irritated by every rub, how will you be polished?    -Rumi- Many have appreciated the writings and wisdom of Rumi for seven centuries. Language is an amazing thing. Rumi wrote mostly in Persian, but the meaning is not lost in translation. Words are translated in different languages and in different hearts. My interpretation: If I get frustrated often when things don't go my way, if I lack acceptance of circumstances beyond my control, I miss opportunities to learn and grow. I become more dull rather than more polished. I shine less because a narrow mind didn't reach for the polishing cloth. I see this in my job setting as well. Young people who are protected from disappointment, failure, and natural consequences begin to suffer the same dullness. It looks like lack of confidence and/or stress and anxiety. They don't believe they can handle difficult things because they weren't given their own polishing cloths. Here's the rub parents: Consider if you are r...

Living gratefully today, I appreciate our stationary bike and the feeling of muscles working and supporting one another. I am thankful of the reminders of how fortunate I am to have the mobility and strength that I do. As I listened to a meditation track this morning, I was being asked to focus and reflect on the ways my body is kind to me.  I haven't typically used the word kind to apply to body processes. I considered my blinking eyes that help me see and my circulating cells as they carry oxygenated blood throughout my body. If that isn't kindness, what is?  Appreciation for my physical body has long been on my gratitude list, imperfections and all. Running marathons, birthing and breastfeeding my son, shoveling snow, walking miles a day are things I have taken pride in, and also make efforts to not take for granted. A cancer diagnosis and removal of now eight body parts because of cancer, or the threat of cancer, have deepened my gratefulness. But blinking eyes, coordinati...

Word for the Day  Mysticism is the experience, not talking or thinking about it, but the actual experience of Oneness with all. (Br. David Steindl-Rast) Oneness. Isn't that a unifying, chasm-crossing word? Isn't that something our world, small scale and large scale, could use now and always? I picked up my coffee and took a sip. I considered the Oneness of the soil and weather that produced the coffee, all the way to the ground coffee I put in our Keurig, with water from a convenient faucet, to make that fresh cup of brew I just enjoyed sipping.  I asked myself, would I even recognize a coffee plant if I saw one?  Probably not. Here's a picture of a field full of coffee plants: Photo from Specialty Coffee Association It's safe to say that this field is many hundreds of miles from my home. Mysticism all along the way. There is much I have already experienced this morning, and throughout my day, that I can do with a sense of mysticism. Of course, writing about it is one s...