Pain + Joy = Life's Beauty
Today I am grateful for the energy created from taking right actions. I am also grateful for our home and the comforts it offers to us.
This was the quote in my gratitude journal a couple of days ago:
"Taken separately, the experiences of life can work harm and not good. Taken together, they make a pattern of blessing and strength the like of which the world does not know."
(V. Raymond Brown)
Gratitude helps us integrate the painful with the joyful so both become part of what makes us who we are. If I only focused on the painful, gratitude would be a tall order. If I only focused on the joyful and denied the pain, I would never gain full perspective. Life needs both the highs and lows.
I don't go looking for pain. I guess I used to when I was drinking. Actually, I drank to kill the pain I felt. But no one is immune to pain, life challenges, difficult situations. If something difficult happens, I can still apply gratitude however, and that helps me not keep spinning it negatively. I return to a healthy mindset more quickly when I apply gratitude. I learn lessons that had to be learned the hard way.
I have been shown the effectiveness of this approach time and time again, particularly in my daily recovery from alcoholism. And certainly when I was in the midst of cancer treatment and surgery recoveries. A pattern of blessing and strength really is possible. And the pattern is more beautiful when I realize I am not the only one weaving it.
This was the quote in my gratitude journal a couple of days ago:
"Taken separately, the experiences of life can work harm and not good. Taken together, they make a pattern of blessing and strength the like of which the world does not know."
(V. Raymond Brown)
Gratitude helps us integrate the painful with the joyful so both become part of what makes us who we are. If I only focused on the painful, gratitude would be a tall order. If I only focused on the joyful and denied the pain, I would never gain full perspective. Life needs both the highs and lows.
I don't go looking for pain. I guess I used to when I was drinking. Actually, I drank to kill the pain I felt. But no one is immune to pain, life challenges, difficult situations. If something difficult happens, I can still apply gratitude however, and that helps me not keep spinning it negatively. I return to a healthy mindset more quickly when I apply gratitude. I learn lessons that had to be learned the hard way.
I have been shown the effectiveness of this approach time and time again, particularly in my daily recovery from alcoholism. And certainly when I was in the midst of cancer treatment and surgery recoveries. A pattern of blessing and strength really is possible. And the pattern is more beautiful when I realize I am not the only one weaving it.
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