Habitual Gratitude

It's all about rising above and about love. Rising above who we are to become more of who we are. I wrote these words in yesterday's post. It was one of those times as a writer where my own words surprise me. They just show up and leave me thinking "where did they come from?" On this last day of 2021, many may be reflecting on the past year and resolving to transform themselves in the next. Reflecting and resolving are good practices, when followed with action, persistence, and faith. I tire of "new year, new you" rhetoric though, and the reality is that most people's resolutions fall by the wayside in the first weeks of the new year.  It's not a new me that is needed. It's maybe one new (or returning) habit that helps me feel a little better in some area of my life. I can build from there. That's where the words above came from. No need to seek a new me. I am right here, right now, perfectly present and perfectly me. I love who I am and I lo

Living gratefully today, I appreciate that I was taught to read at a young age, and that I can enjoy movies in the comfort of my home thanks to streaming services like Netflix. Last night we watched a movie that others had recommended. This morning I finished a book, also recommended by others. Both were worthy of my time. They weren't light fare in terms of struggle and emotional range, but those are the kinds of movies and books I like. It's all about rising above and about love. Rising above who we are to become more of who we are. Love wins.  The book came recommended to me by two students at my school, and a colleague had a copy I borrowed. The book is: It was a quick read, and also quick to touch my heart in many ways. Set in WWII, it is about a sister and brother finding the true meaning of home. And it is about so much more.  The movie is: (imdb.com) It was an emotionally-heavy movie, with a strong performance from Sandra Bullock and a good supporting cast. The plotline

Today I am grateful for the moon and stars in the morning sky, bringing me both a sense of awe and a reminder of humility. I also appreciate my sense of touch on this cold morning. Feeling the below-zero temperatures on the small area of my face that was uncovered, but also noticing the reliable warmth of my decades-old parka. I am also grateful for a visit with my friend Betsy. Good to see you!  Consider today's "Word for the Day" from A Network for Grateful Living :   I am thankful for my struggle because without it, I wouldn’t have stumbled upon my strength. (Alexandra Elle) Most of us probably ponder this and call to mind some of our own struggles and what each has taught us. As adults, we have the perspective and experience that shows us we can get through many difficulties. In retrospect, such times and challenges are seen as transformative and transcendent.  Some of my challenges include active alcoholism in my teens and early twenties, cancer and surgeries in my f

Today I am grateful for safe travels, nice walks, fun games, good food, the joy of little children, shared coffee and conversation, and many more gifts that came my way as we spent time with family over the last few days.  My husband Darcy and I treated ourselves to a stay in a newer hotel in the area. I treated myself to the workout room for two mornings. I have been running regularly outdoors, so this presented an opportunity for worry-free terrain and also an opportunity to push my pace. Though a little hard to read, the words on one wall in the workout room read: "Don't wish for it. Work for it."  I ran a varied pace, got my heart rate going and sweat flowing. I listened to music one morning, having forgotten how motivational that can be, though I still prefer to run device-free a vast majority of the time. Running form is also easier to see and feel with mirrors nearby and a controlled environment.  I appreciated my improved form, the fruits of the labor of a few phy

"This holiday season consider making your (true) presence a present to as many  people as you can. Less wrapped. More rapt."  Lisa Valentine  Quoting myself today. Not something I usually do, but this one fits nicely here. It is from my first-ever paid and published piece. It ran in the Minneapolis Star Tribune in the Opinion Exchange section on December 5, 2010 with the title of "Slow down; you move too fast."  I was thrilled then, and honored now. Reading it again, the message within is just as timely as it was 11 years ago.  I am not one to get too crazy at the holidays. I typically enjoy them and the time off from school. But I am one to just get too busy with life on a regular basis.  Taking my own words to heart, I captured some rapt moments in the last day. I also captured a couple of pictures. This first one is a Trader Joe's bag. We shopped there over a week ago and I put the the bag downstairs for a few days because it had holiday baking supplies in i

Take your seat at the table of healing and transformation. Dr. Larry Ward Everyone has a place at this table. Not everyone takes their seat. It can be unappetizing work at times, but nothing nourishes the human spirit as well.  Yesterday was the winter solstice. The darkest day in the  Northern Hemisphere. Darkness is already giving way to more light. Do I feel this in my own life? Where there is darkness, am I shining the light of forgiveness?  The darkness I face isn't nearly as far-reaching as it used to be. There has already been so much healing and transformation over the course of my 56 years of living.   If we are honest though, we each have work to do at this table. Does the holiday season present you with opportunities and time to give to some of this work?  Maybe there is a person you resent, a circumstance that seems unforgiving. Is it weighing you down? Darkening the horizon of this new day?  Consider what you can do.  Most often it is about letting go, shifting expecta

I wrote this as I considered my ongoing recovery from alcoholism. The times I have struggled the most in recovery have been brought on by complacency. Recovery is work, but it is also freedom and joy. As in anything, we will hit plateaus and uninspired times. The important thing is to recognize it for what it is and step up or change our routine and practices. I was considering this all as I took an early morning walk the other day, thinking about the lives lost to alcoholism and addiction every day. In my own recovery community, I had just heard of a couple of people who had recently died, directly or indirectly caused by their addictions. Lives of diminished joy and much suffering. Lives cut short.  Complacency doesn't take our lives quickly. It tends to do it subtly and slowly. Addiction is wily that way.  I don't want to die, and I don't want to live half-heartedly. Complacency has had me really stuck and in significant pain in various times throughout my recovery. I di

Today I am grateful for connections of many kinds and for timing that made one this morning possible.  This is what I wrote and caught on video earlier: Movement caught my eye across the street in the pre-dawn. I hadn’t even turned on any lights other than those on our Christmas tree. Three deer made their way through the neighborhood. I watched from the warmth of my home as one paused and began to head my way. A buck with antlers walked slowly across the trail, then the road, pausing near our mailbox and then foraging near our crabapple tree.  I simply watched and also felt the complexity of one living being connecting with another. A deer sent to hearten my spirits and remind me that Great Spirit and Nature are always with me even when I ignore them. Just yards away, with some sort of lifeline between us, a deer and I connected. I captured video to show my husband, but needed no permanent record because my heart holds the memory, the moment of presence shared. (12/19/21  5:20 a.m.) T

Living gratefully today, I have generous appreciation for the good health I have, and I embrace healing and acceptance in those times when my body has faced altering in the hope of improving quality of life and longevity. I am so grateful to my husband Darcy for his support and love through my health issues and surgeries.  It was thirteen years ago this morning when Darcy, my two intact breasts, and I traveled to United Hospital in St. Paul. The scheduled third surgery to address the cancer in my right breast was a bilateral mastectomy that day. Surgery was "successful" and a couple days later just Darcy and I went home. I was forever changed, and in ways also forever free.  And 108 days ago, I had a complete hysterectomy with bilateral salpingo-oopherectomy at our local surgery center. I went home later that day, forever changed again. The jury is still out on where this most recent surgery leaves me and where I find myself as a post-menopausal woman and breast cancer patien

Living gratefully today, I appreciate the sounds that my ears can hear; from house sounds to my own breathing. Sounds can help ground me in the present moment.  Last Friday afternoon and evening, we got over a foot of fresh snow. Rather than my usual Saturday morning run, I was busy shoveling. By Sunday though, roads and sidewalks were clear enough to allow a run. I had to be cautious and slower (than usual), but it was a treat to be out in the fresh winter wonderland.  I was giving thanks for snowplow operators and the road clearing, and my community neighbors for their efforts to make sidewalks passable. That included this stretch.   It went on for a few hundred yards. Less than two feet wide, but plenty of room for a solitary runner to take her next strides. It was like running through a tunnel in ways. As I ran, I first thought about narrow-mindedness and how it serves no one well. It can be detrimental and divisive, and our contentious world is full of it. I had to ask myself in w

  A miracle happened: another day of life.   (Paulo Coelho) I am writing this in the early morning of a brand new day. If you are reading this, it means you woke up to another day too. There are no guarantees, ever, that we will get another day. I don't know about you, but I forget that regularly, taking days on end for granted.  Reminders of the fragile and precious nature of existence always come along though. They wake me up in a different way than my eyes opening each morning. Reminders like terrible tornadoes that took dozens of lives in parts of the U.S. over the weekend. Reminders like a former colleague dying suddenly. He was a year younger than I am. Reminders like alcoholics and addicts dying from their disease or the long-term effects of it. What if I didn't need these shocking and jarring reminders? What if I woke up each new day and welcomed it with a smile and a thank you?  What if I approached it as suggested by Brother David Steindl-Rast: "If you learn to r

A is for almond milk B is for bananas C is for clementines and cereal D is for dark coffee E is for plenty to eat F is for family to share it with  G is for granola  H is for healthy habits  And so on . . .  Doing an A-Z gratitude list can be a fun and engaging way to focus some energy on what is going well in our days. Living gratefully is about noticing what we already have, and also about creating energy so we can be contributors to others and the world around us.   I regularly did these A-Z lists when I was exercising or commuting. I haven't done them as much lately. I will bring them back into my rotation of practices for living gratefully. Another way to approach this is to have others that you text or email your list to, or that you team with to complete a list. I'll text A-H, you take it from there, until we're done.  If you missed it, here's a related post from last week:  Making a List . . . Checking It Twice Gratitude shared is gratitude multiplied.

  "Be. Receive. Give thanks." "You are worthy dear one, and you have been since the day you took your first breath. Sarah Blondin  Sarah Blondin  is a meditation teacher on Insight Timer, author, and podcast host for "live awake." You can read more about her in this post from last June. In it I write about timely teachers. She has been one of mine this last year as I have become more consistent in my mindful meditation practice. This practice, this new habit, is one I have tried before and walked away from. Or should I say "thought my way away from." I developed a thinking problem in my childhood. It stemmed from emotions that were stunted or lacking entirely. As an active alcoholic, I had a drinking and thinking problem for ten years. In the thirty-plus years since I took my last drink, my alcoholism has continued to show itself in my faulty thinking patterns. I am not making light of any of it. Recovering people may joke about our "thinking pr

Not THAT list. This one . . . Today I am grateful for: 1. Resistance bands and the exercises they allow me to do. 2. Reminders to live gratefully that are in a variety of places around our home, including:     a. a "Blessed" sign in our family room                 b. "Grateful Heart" keychain with my car keys, a gift from a friend (the keychain, not the car :-)      c. my coffee mug this morning, from my niece's shop, that reads "Everyday miracles are all around us,           go find yours." 3. Our neighbor's holiday lights that are on early each morning when I take Oliver out. They are colorful,     flowing lights that capture the eyes.  4. Streetlights and a reflector vest that helped me take a run safely last evening in the dark.  5. Self-forgiveness. For me, the toughest to come by, but the most transforming. 6. A phone call with a recovering friend. A vent session, but also always some laughter.   7. The cows and farmers that made possible the

Today I am grateful for yogurt and granola, easy-to-peel clementines, coffee, our kitchen. I am also grateful for the first measurable snowfall of the season. It brightened up the drab late fall landscape.                    And it presented the opportunity for this picture: These are some holiday lights on a bush in front of our house. I went for a walk later last evening just so I could take in the gentle snow falling and the excitement of this winter wonderland. Ever since childhood, I have loved being out in the snow when it is coming down. Sometimes it is brisk and windy, but last night the air was still and the flakes lazily made their way to the ground.  It was also a very light snow, easy to shovel off the driveway, and more likely to cling to a small light like those above. Fragile and precious snowflakes. Fragile and precious life that we are gifted with each morning we wake up. Light snow. Snow covering, but not dousing, cheerful little lights. That's all. And it's e

Living gratefully today, I appreciate seeing things with fresh eyes, like the ironing board that hangs in our basement. It is over 40 years old and doesn't get used often, but I am thankful every time I need it. What is something you have walked past dozens of times lately and not noticed? Look for one thing today to give a few moments focus to, and then send it some gratefulness for existing. Speaking of gratefulness for existing, there were mushrooms in my roasted vegetables for lunch yesterday. And then scrolling on Facebook, I came across a "World Soil Day" video (which was December 5) from the incredible cinematographer and filmmaker  Louie Schwartzberg . It brought my son Sam to mind. He is studying agronomy, which includes soil science. I appreciated the connection and showed the video to Sam when I saw him shortly after. Back to those mushrooms though. As I kept looking through some more of Schwartzberg's work, I came across this mini-lesson on mushrooms. It&#

Today I am grateful for the vocabulary of words available to me, and for Christmas cookie decorating with our grandson.  Those two gratitudes bring together today's post title. Askance is defined as:  with an attitude or look of suspicion or disapproval   To look askance at:  to be doubtful about, insincerely, deceptively, obliquely, sideways, indirectly, out of the corner of one's eye The word came to my mind when I took this pan of cookies out of the oven: The cookies were random on the pan. Whatever fits. But the angel and the gingerbread cookies caught my eye and brought askance to mind. See what I mean? I smiled a little. Each cookie was perfectly imperfect in a unique way. I was in cut-out production mode and had made a double-batch. I was using several pans, including this one that is clearly well-used. I am not one to be too particular about what the cookies look like. When our grandson Leo joined me later to decorate many of them, we really enjoyed ourselves, made a me

  I am not what happened to me,  I am what I choose to become. Carl Jung Who looks outside, dreams; who looks inside, awakes.  Carl Jung I am a big fan of Swiss psychiatrist Carl Jung and his work has been influential in a key area of my life: ongoing recovery from alcoholism. The first quote above was one I don’t recall hearing before, so I appreciated when it showed up on Insight Timer this week.  It really nails the futility of victimhood. I am not negating the difficult times and losses in my life, or anyone else's; I am encouraging choices that help me, and you, heal and transform.  That is recovery work in a nutshell.  Here are some more words of Carl Jung's and mine from previous blog posts.  Nigredo, a post from January 17, 2017 Psychiatrist Carl Jung and others of his time compared the alchemist idea of nigredo to the human ego; how stemming from our darkest times and deepest despair can come light and growth. And how at least some of our problems of our own making, th

  Living gratefully today, I appreciate my legs, arms, and heart and how they make it possible for me to run. I also give thanks for the awe and perspective that sunsets provide. I have plenty of sunset and sunrise pictures. Do some of them look similar? Sure. Are any of them the same? No. This was the sunset for December 1, 2021 in my part of the world, specifically captured at 4:25 p.m. CST. I never tire of witnessing sunrises and sunsets. How could I? Why would I?  It means I was given another day. Not everyone gets that.  The lighting in the top photo caught my eye first, as I ran on a local trail with my back to the setting sun. The trees are bare, barren, and muted in color. With a closer look, it is clear that several have broken limbs. Broken. My local community made national news this week, exposing hate and intolerance. Another school shooting has left four students dead in Michigan. The omicron variant of COVID is raising major concerns.  The darkness seems so heavy at times