Daily Gratitude: How true this is. We talk a lot about resistance and I think Resistance (yes with an intentional capital R) has its strongest hold when it comes to letting go. We have to control everything and know how everything is going to work out) or at least “know” all the possibilities. It takes forever to realize we have no control over all that no matter how hard we try. Letting go means “losing” to so many of us. It should actually be considered a “win” if it has to be considered anything. Personally, I know how good it feels if I stop trying to make things happen – and happen the way I want them to. Or, if i just say “OK, I’m going to sit back and let this all unfold as the universe, not me, plans”. Once I’m able to do that, my breathing is not so tight and i don’t feel as jittery (calming my nervous system). It’s a feeling of great relief and sometimes plain old joy to feel that easy deep breathing. Can I do this all the time? Heck no. Am I trying to do it more? Definitely. What helps? “Everything always works out for me!” As dorky as that sounds, if I say it enough it’s so much easier to let go.

Daily Gratitude: Optimism is such an important quality for you to cultivate. Even when things seem to go wrong, know that they aren’t really going “wrong”. They are teaching you something. It’s simply your job to figure out what it is you’re supposed to learn. Everyone talks about all the attempts at creating the light bulb that Edison made before he hit the right one. But you better believe that Thomas didn’t just hop from one attempt to the next. I will bet you he had an evaluative period in between attempts where he asked “what did I learn from this?” In fact he once said he discovered 13000 (or whatever the actual number was) ways not to make a lightbulb. Can you look at your “failures” and “mistakes” in this way and ask the universe what it’s trying to teach you….and is there a better way you can approach this failure? Never let any opportunity?

Daily Gratitude: How do you “think” about things? Most people actually have pictures in their mind, not words. Try this. See if you can just think of the word “car”. How’d you do? I bet you either saw an image of the word sitting in a dictionary, or more likely you pictured some specific type and color of a car. We are visual people. Seeing the word “car” doesn’t really make you feel one way or another. Perhaps you have bad memories of a boarding school teacher yelling at you or another student for an incorrect spelling. But many people will feel something almost automatically if they see an actual car – perhaps one they want or one they had in the past. These feelings just pop up. Then we normally assign a “good” or “ bad” adjective to those feelings. In many cases next comes some sort of action. That action may simply be telling another about their great desire to have a blue Lamborghini. Sometimes the action is to figure out something they need at the store and to go get it just to be in A car. If it’s something you want, those feelings cause you to take one or more actions. This leads to results. This may sound inconsequential but if you sometimes wonder why you did something, you should be able to trace it backwards. It’s the feelings part that tends to get us in trouble and once we recognize that, and know where the feelings lie in the process, we can do something about it if the results aren’t what we desire. Always go back to the thought and the subsequent feeling.