Daily Gratitude: Maybe you can’t do much (or anything) about your past thoughts other than to examine your life and see if you can correlate the two. But you certainly can do something about your future. Despite the chaos in the world today, you are in control of your thoughts. And it is your thoughts that will determine where you go. Sure you can say “but I can’t do anything about the political situation or all the wars” and that would be true. But you can do something about how you think about your life and your interactions with other people. Why not focus on your own microcosm – your family, friends and maybe even your community? How? By monitoring and measuring your thoughts. The most important part of that formula is to monitor them. You’d be surprised and maybe a bit overwhelmed by the number of negative thoughts that go through your head every day. even if you think you’re a positive person, I think you might notice some back and forth in your mind – a positive thought comes and then some little voice (it’s really a part) pipes up and says “oh yeah, well let me tell you how it really is. Your positive stuff is BS….etc.”. This is normal because your mind and your parts are protectors. They are meant to get you through danger and you can’t get through danger if you don’t recognize it and haven’t experienced something like it so you know what to do. this is all ok. don’t get discouraged. For a week or so, just become aware of what’s happening, aware of the conversations in your head. you don’t even need to change them for that first couple of weeks. just notice them. write them down if you can. that will help you review later rather than just relying on your memory. it’s also a way to enable you to decide what you want to change. Start with this.