Daily Gratitude: Love is, indeed, an energy. In that regard it’s similar to gratitude. By that I mean that experiencing and expressing gratitude mobilizes more energy in your life than you can imagine. Gratitude is as powerful as love. Feeling one or both of these will increase your vibration and when that happens, you will bring more love and more things to be grateful for into your life. Take some time to remember how you feel when you’re in love with something (and it doesn’t have to be a romantic type of love). Didn’t you think you were pretty much invincible? Or, perhaps, you didn’t need as much sleep as usual. What’s behind all that? Energy! Did you know you can imprint these memories along with the feelings on your brain? When you do that, you can call upon those emotions and immediately improve how you feel. We all need to experience love. If you know someone who doesn’t appear to have much love in their life, see what you can do to share some of your love with them.

Daily Gratitude: The way to overcome fear is to take action. The more you remain immobile, the more time you have to worry and doubt. And what comes after worry and doubt is fear. They are all variations on one theme. Stand up, recognize your fear, break it down so you know what you’re really afraid of and then you’ll know which action(s) you need to take. Let me give you an example that I’m still working on. I’ve talked about it before. I do not like making phone calls or even talking on the phone. We were not allowed to be on the phone for more than 3 minutes as I was growing up. But that was a long time ago so what’s really behind this fear. One thing I have discovered and probably written about before is that on the phone I can’t use my other senses to try to figure out what’s going on with the other person. I can see them to see if they look bored or aren’t paying attention etc. so what? Well, those characteristics were apparently what I learned were the key to whether someone was bored with me or didn’t like me or thought I didn’t have anything useful to say, or think I’m not smart etc. I really need to see someone or else I don’t trust what i “hear”. Not sure that was clear but that’s why I’m still working on it. But I still need to take action and that takes an act of Congress for me to pick up the phone. The more I do it and realize that I’m not going to melt or have a meltdown just calling Verizon, the easier it will get. This is, I guess, the essence of exposure therapy. Are there any fears that you have that you’ve dug deep into? Do you know what you’re really afraid of? Work on that and then figure out a game plan. Solicit help from friends and family too. Sometimes just expressing the fear will help you realize there aren’t any ghosts in the closet. We can continue to work together.

Daily Gratitude: From a Sailor’s point of view this is a nicer way to say “control what you can control and pay little to no attention to the things you have no control over”. When things don’t go the way you planned for them to go, you can mope and pout or, you can pull yourself up by the bootstraps and figure out how you’re going to revise your plans in light of what’s happening. Changing your course willingly, trusting that the universe is sending you in the right direction will get you where you’re supposed to be even if it’s not where you wanted. I have repeatedly talked about my wanting to be a doctor since I was 4. And i wanted to be a neurosurgeon. Well, that went to poop when I developed epilepsy. But you know what? I am so happy I didn’t go into neurosurgery because I have impacted more people with the career I ended up with Than I ever would have as a neurosurgeon. It wasn’t what I scripted but it was the absolute best thing that could have happened. Always be flexible and maintain an open (growth oriented) mindset. Let go of the need to control. You will end up where you’re supposed to be.