Mornin or afternoon:) Hoping you’re well.
It’s dawn for me and I’m watching the rays of light play hide and seek with the clouds and the lingering evening darkness.
I adore this time of day…the transitioning from one period to another…and I’ve watched these shifts of so called evening to morning enough to know there’s a gentleness and calm in the shifting.
Right? I mean it doesn’t go from pitch dark of midnight to brightness of mid morning glow.
No harsh changes.
No rigid staccato shift.
Just gentle, easy, flowing change.
Kinda like our spiritual growth or inner movement.
Sometimes what lets me ‘tune in’ to that growth is to pause and recollect all that I have to be grateful for.
A simple list emerged for me this dawn:
1. heat
2. electricity
3. hot water in the shower
4. a cozy blanket
5. warm coat, hat, gloves.
And then I thought about each of those ‘things’ and what they represented to me:
a. heat — represents the constancy of warmth…gives me a tangible sense of being cared for.
b. electricity — represents having my moments and days illumined, surely by light, but greatly more with awareness.
c. hot shower — represents being able to refresh and rejuvenate.
d. a cozy blanket — represents protection…a presence that nurtures and shields while it comforts and supports.
e. warm coat, hat and gloves — represent adornments..provisions that meet my need for physical warmth when I’m out and about.
I do this a lot…think about the quality or essence of what some ‘thing’ represents to me. It helps me expand what it is that I’m really cherishing about that thing. (Okay ..this is kinda tough when the “thing” is Skittles..but…you know we try). 🙂
My point: the more I’m aware of what I’m grateful for…and the more I strive to get the essence or quality of that thing I’m grateful for, the more I’m so appreciative of my now. And this helps me deeply much to stay engaged and proactively aware of the flow of good occuring in my life.
Now this is not to say there’s not a lot of ‘muck’ too that I need to sift through and work through. But time and again, as I intend specific moments to really acknowledge what I’m grateful for and get the why behind that thing, I’m very aware that what is good about my now far outweighs the not so good.
This matters much because it helps lighten my thought and keeps me from dwelling on stuff I want to change immediately that probably won’t for a bit (like winter weather) 🙂 Or things I want to master by noon that probably will take me several months still to figure out (all my online endeavors). Or further other work related goals that may well take several years to see come to fruition.
Impatience, frustration, anxiousness, or intimidation –all of these tendencies are ousted with deep overflowing gratitude that zeroes into the good of our right now.
Give it a whirl and see.
Take a few moments to consider some really basic ways you are warmed, comforted, sustained throughout your day.
Jot down or take mental note of those ‘things.’
Now take each one, and probe it further.
Ask yourself what it is about that thing that really moves you to cherish it.
How does that thing warm you? comfort you? sustain you?
And why does that matter?
Now take stock in all that you just thought about.
How do you feel?
Kinda full of warmth and comfort?
Gauge that feeling with any angst you may be feeling toward your work or toward a relationship or toward any aspect of your life.
It simply helps put things into much more even keeled perspective, doesn’t it?
Plus, a grateful heart tends to seek the good in situations whereas a frustrated one doesn’t always zero i and notice.
So…how bout it?
What did this simple exercise make you think about?
What are some of the things you took stock in and why?
As always thank for being here and sharing from the heart. 🙂