CHOOSING GRATITUDE:

Just as the sun sets in this simple serene last moment of the day, we can chose how we begin and end our day. As I have written about before in my blog, for a very long time, I have chosen to begin each day by vocally saying my ‘gratitudes’ and prayer. Recently, I read about being grateful in advance for those things/people who will cross our paths the next day. I had to stop and think about that and decide if this was something I wanted to incorporate at the end of my day. The answer was YES, and so I have as I wrap up my day, thinking about tomorrow.

Choosing to be grateful is a conscious decision and can be a way to turn a negative challenge for us into a life giving gratitude, an intentional quest to find the good in an otherwise difficult situation. This is not easy!!! I repeat, this is not easy. I think it requires adjusting our mindset on what is really important, given any situation. There will always be difficulties, tragedies, crisis, and you name it because that is life! Yep, it happens doesn’t it?? Sometimes, it even feels like a tsunami! I don’t want to trivialize switching the mindset; maybe it is more like baby steps on finding that path of gratitude when the tsunami hits. Baby steps are positive and move us in the right direction. Our first step is to make the choice, the choice to find some part of the pain/loss/challenge that we are so grateful for that we know if it had not been a part of our lives, we would have missed the gift.

May you each feel the tender warmth of a grateful heart today, tomorrow and always.

PJP