Daily Gratitude: I just love this. If I was still working, I’d print this out and hang it on my computer or wall so that I could see it and remember it. All too often we let one thing that went “wrong” ruin our day and sometimes even our week. How foolish is that? Why should one thing affect the rest of our day? We also have to remember William Shakespeare’s precious statement “nothing is good or bad but thinking makes it so”. Perhaps you could pick a day, a day you think if going to be easy. Then set the intention of examining your opinions about things. Every time you think “yuck” or “damn” or “oh no”, stop and ask yourself why you made that determination. Is there a way you can look at that one thing differently so that maybe it’s not so bad? Make a serious effort to find something good about it. But even if you can’t, vow to sweep it under the rug and move on with your day. Make a conscious effort to tell yourself that that one thing will NOT start an avalanche of bad things happening. Be like a baseball player and “shake it off”. You can actually do the shaking motion as a symbol that you’re leaving that one thing behind and you’re not about to let it influence how the rest of your day will go.

Daily Gratitude: How often do we even think about being stuck IN a point of view – as if it’s quicksand or something similar? To take the quicksand thing a bit further, consider this. You’re stuck in quicksand but actually it’s your lower body or legs that are covered in that material. Your upper body and head are not stuck. They can see the beauty of all around – they just can’t reach it. It’s like a tease. “See all this other stuff that looks interesting? Bet you wish you could experience some of that. “ your mouth is watering but you just can’t get there to try it out since you’re stuck. If you could magically wash off all that quicksand material, would you go over and try to experience what you see? Or would you still think your legs were stuck in the quicksand and avert your eyes. Why are you unwilling or afraid to try a new and different thought/belied? Are you still mired in your the quicksand of your past?

Daily Gratitude: Wow. What a simple sentence. What a simple concept. If you look at this closely, you can see how people who love one another could eventually end up hating the other. Hate is a very distorted form of love. But think about it for a bit. Think of something you hate. I don’t hate them now but I used to say I hated the Red Sox. Why? Because I so loved the Yankees that I wanted them to win against all odds. If I didn’t love the Yankees so much, would I have Even cared about the other teams? Probably not. It was that fierce love that brought about the opposite feeling. A more easily understood example is the couple that seems so in love but who eventually ends up separated but remain great friends. Take a few minutes to think about things you’ve loved and how that has changed. I used to love running but since I was sick in 2016/2017 I can’t do it anymore. I still love it and now I have to do the closest thing – walking. I love walking now but didn’t used to. It took losing one thing or a part of one thing for my emotional attachment to switch to the thing that’s closest (walking). My love took a different form – it didnt go away.