I put on my fluffy purple dressing gown and thanked it for being so cosy and always being there when I need it. I slipped my feet into the waiting slippers and felt grateful for the comfort they provide. I made my bed and said ‘thank you for keeping me so warm and comfortable last night’ to my duvet and pillow. On the loo I thanked the toilet for effortlessly removing my waste. I thanked the kettle for quickly providing hot water for my tea.
This was a little experiment. I wondered what it would be like if I submerged myself in gratitude, lived every single step with thanks and appreciation. It was actually quite intensely beautiful. I had to slow right down and be very very present to what I was doing. Soon the days tasks took over and I speeded up and the spell was broken.
I am going to take this experiment further. I am thanking this keyboard as I type. I thanked my tasty soup earlier for sustaining me. I love how it makes everything come alive, as if they have a life of their own. I’m thanking the tree outside my window right now as I look at it. I am about to get up and make some more tea, and I will practice mindful walking as I travel to the kitchen, and awareness of breathing. Here we go….Back with my tea now and it was lovely. Being aware of every step took me into the experience of walking, and I noticed how the body weight moved from hip to hip. I noticed the floor, I breathed consciously. Problems find this a near impossible environment within which to flourish.
I have been feeling a bit disorientated to say the least over the last months and year now that my long held roles of being useful in the sense of nurturer, mother, helper of wounded souls, and pet owner have ended. I have alone time and space to deal with, and now that I am finding my feet again, I wonder what to do with it. I realise it is a blank sheet of paper that I will write the next chapter of my life story on.
I could if I wanted to, choose to start focusing on everything I imagine I lack. Alternatively I can focus on what I have and on appreciation of how well all my needs are taken care of. I can enter into complaint or appreciation, my choice every moment of every day. The fullness or the emptiness, the abundance or the lack.
Today for now I choose appreciation
- I am grateful to be so warm in this apartment when it is so very cold wet and windy outside.
- I am grateful that I have a big new project starting on Monday and that more new work is arriving in already
- I am grateful for having such a great lovely team of guys
- I thank everyone around me who provides much appreciated support and company
- I thank this computer for working so reliably and for so long without breaking
- I thank my son who has provided a whole new depth of joy, fun, love and for so many years. I appreciate that I was able to have a child and feel grateful for all the help I had with him as he was growing up. Thanks to my mum and dad, his grandparents, to my friends, all of them helped enormously.
- I am grateful to this planet for supporting me and I am grateful to gravity for keeping my feet on the ground
- I am grateful for the world teachers who have helped me so much Tara Brach, Eckhart Tolle, Adyashanti, Rumi
- Thank you to all the amazing wise books that have helped me so very much
- Thank you to nature for always being there as a source of soothing and inspiration and beauty
- I am grateful that I have a job I like
- I am grateful I have found a way of reducing the pain of my mouth ulcer (letting a paracetamol dissolve against it)
- I am grateful to myself, for all the amazing strengths and beautiful qualities I have, my courage, my honesty and openness, creativity, compassion and love, tenderness and kindness and caring, perceptiveness, open mindedness, humility, discipline, understanding, forgiveness, my ability to feel fear, anger happiness and sadness.
- I am so grateful to my health and level of fitness
- I am grateful that I can go swimming every morning
- Thank you for all the incredibly enjoyable years of companionship that my dog Kalinka gave me and all the walks we had (having some tears thinking about it, I miss her company a lot, allow and surrender allow and surrender).
- Thank you for the large amount of freedom I have
- Thank you to all those who have chummed me along here through my processes. It has been amazingly helpful to put the process into words at times, very grounding.
- Thank you to wordpress for providing this space too!
Learning to Rest with it All 