Daily Gratitude: How many of you read this and thought “how selfish this is”? It’s not selfish at all. In fact it’s essential. We have to start with ourselves and making changes within before we can have any real hope of changing the world. For 70 years I thought I was just stuck being the person I was – and it was not a very good image. There was despair thinking I could or would never change. But then I discovered IFS (Internal Family Systems) and learned that change is possible at any age. Once I applied the principles of IFS, I not only became a changed woman but also a much happier woman. It takes work (just as curing chronic pain takes work by you) but I can tell you that this is the most rewarding work I’ve ever done – either for myself or for others. Once you decide you want to change and find the method that works for you, you’ll go through some grief because you are losing parts of yourself. But once your brain and your parts are realigned, you’ll wonder why you didn’t discover this a long time ago. Everything comes in it’s time and I am so grateful my time finally came.

Daily Gratitude: Can you relate to this? I certainly can. Ha! How well do things get done in your life when you have very little (or no) enthusiasm for them. I noticed this today. I was tired and just went through the motions for most of my daily routine always thinking about how nice it would be to just go back to bed. Then i had to do something with my van to get it fixed up more and all of a sudden i wasn’t tired any more. I was interested and engaged. It was truly intriguing. Since everything in our lives is not unique we might want to put some effort into figuring out how to make something interesting or somehow up our enthusiasm. For some one will be easier than the other. Remember, though, that if we can act enthusiastically, we will become enthusiastic. Generate the emotion somehow (make a game or a challenge of it) and then it will light the fire under you. Kind of like creating a spark and that will lead to a raging fire. You can also make a game out of the “boring” thing you have to do. Figure out a reward you can give yourself in order to motivate yourself to complete it. Do anything you can to generate enthusiasm and do those great things on your way pathway to greatness!

Daily Gratitude: What’s the antidote to doubt? Faith! Doubt is just another manifestation of fear. How many times have you thought “I’d really like to do this thing” followed by “but i doubt I can because I don’t know how or I’m not good enough” or some variation on that theme. We must do all we can to eliminate doubt. One way is to realize that the universe brought this idea or thought to you and it wouldn’t have done that had it not “known” you had the ability to do it. The abilities may be buried to a degree but with some effort and a lot of faith, you can uncover those abilities or at least a plan. As I’ve mentioned before I wanted to cross the USA on foot – for 30 years I’d wanted this. But I always doubted I could do it for many reasons. When I finally decided it was time to do it, I had the faith to try it. The faith that it would work out as everything always does for me. Once I had the faith, there was no stopping me. I created a plan including a “last minute” decision to retire and went full force into it. I surprised myself but it was that transformation of doubt to faith that stimulated me into taking ACTION (sense a theme here?). That has happened about 3 times in my life and each time the energy and momentum generated had been beyond belief. Recognize when you’re feeling doubt and then do your best to convert that doubt into faith. Oh and im not specifically talking about religious type faith. Just faith that you can do something.