A Larger Landscape
Today I am grateful for the calming breeze and gently shifting clouds as I presently enjoy some outdoor time. I am also grateful for the more sane pace at work.
The focus that the 8-day Everyday Gratitude exploration is helping bring to my thoughts and feelings is also appreciated. I don't want to become complacent in gratitude, rote in referencing the same things in the same ways. I want to delve deeper, discover richer meaning.
Here is one way it is working. Instead of mindlessly rushing through some of my morning tasks, as will happen at least some of the time, I am relishing those tasks as my true job. My true job is to be fully present to whatever I am doing in this moment.
Whether it is composing this blog post. Preparing my lunch. Taking a shower. Each becomes a richer experience when I stay present in them, and that is the essence of living gratefully.
Day 3's quote is from Sarah Ban Breathnach:
The focus that the 8-day Everyday Gratitude exploration is helping bring to my thoughts and feelings is also appreciated. I don't want to become complacent in gratitude, rote in referencing the same things in the same ways. I want to delve deeper, discover richer meaning.
Here is one way it is working. Instead of mindlessly rushing through some of my morning tasks, as will happen at least some of the time, I am relishing those tasks as my true job. My true job is to be fully present to whatever I am doing in this moment.
Whether it is composing this blog post. Preparing my lunch. Taking a shower. Each becomes a richer experience when I stay present in them, and that is the essence of living gratefully.
Day 3's quote is from Sarah Ban Breathnach:
"While we cry ourselves to sleep, gratitude waits patiently to console and reassure us;
there is a landscape larger than the one we can see."
The accompanying question is:
"What strengths of character have I learned from the hard times in my life?"
The hard times in my adult life have included lacking job competence and confidence as a teacher and then a school counselor. Wondering if and when I would meet the right man. A cancer diagnosis and all that came with it. Struggling to honor myself as a writer and my writing as worthy.
The most significant, ongoing challenge for me, rooted in an emotionally inhibited childhood and adolescence, and also likely in my genetic make-up, is alcoholism. Daily work for a daily disease. It has very little to do with craving a drink, which rarely happens anymore. It has very much to do with my mindset.
In my active alcoholism, and even before I started drinking, my mind was out to get me. The alcohol effectively quieted the mind for a brief respite. I had to learn to quiet my mind and redirect my negative, self-loathing thought processes.
Living gratefully, regularly looking for the good in a day, remembering what is going well, pausing to take in the joylets of the day. These all make a profound difference.
The hard times in my adult life have included lacking job competence and confidence as a teacher and then a school counselor. Wondering if and when I would meet the right man. A cancer diagnosis and all that came with it. Struggling to honor myself as a writer and my writing as worthy.
The most significant, ongoing challenge for me, rooted in an emotionally inhibited childhood and adolescence, and also likely in my genetic make-up, is alcoholism. Daily work for a daily disease. It has very little to do with craving a drink, which rarely happens anymore. It has very much to do with my mindset.
In my active alcoholism, and even before I started drinking, my mind was out to get me. The alcohol effectively quieted the mind for a brief respite. I had to learn to quiet my mind and redirect my negative, self-loathing thought processes.
Living gratefully, regularly looking for the good in a day, remembering what is going well, pausing to take in the joylets of the day. These all make a profound difference.
And they have helped me develop these strengths of character:
*Self-discipline.
*Perseverance.
*Self-care and self-love.
*Patience.
I remain a work in progress. The work of this day is to take one thing at a time, with an open and grateful heart and mind. The landscape that has been revealed since I quit drinking and started recovering holds a beauty and a hope I never could have imagined.
I remain a work in progress. The work of this day is to take one thing at a time, with an open and grateful heart and mind. The landscape that has been revealed since I quit drinking and started recovering holds a beauty and a hope I never could have imagined.
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