Daily Gratitude: This might give you some incentive to embrace the difficult times. Consider them a training camp to teach you how to handle the bad times when they come.

Try to develop this sort of mindset in addition to practicing looking for the good in every single event that happens in your life.

Make your life like looking for Easter eggs. The kids know there are a lot of “goodies” (eggs) hidden out there and they know that it’s going to be fun finding them. They don’t start out on Easter Sunday thinking “damn this is going to be hard. Is it going to be worth it? I mean who cares – they’re just eggs. What if I don’t find any? People will laugh at me and I’ll cry. I’m just going to sit this one out.” Or something similar.

No, they start the day just like Christmas with excitement about the unknown. They want to explore and see what they can find. Enthusiasm abounds.

If your day isn’t outstanding and maybe you’re a bit down, make a game (or a challenge) out of finding the good that may be hidden from obvious sight.

Do this repeatedly and it will become a habit. Then when the bad things happen, you won’t even have to give it a second thought- you’ll just immediately begin looking for the good. Next thing you know, the bad won’t seem so bad.

Your sacred space

Daily Gratitude: There is a sacred space inside of each and every one of us. You may not be aware of it, especially if you’ve closed yourself off to your emotions, or if you just keep so busy that there is no calmness in your life.

You have to be quiet to enter this space. In IFS (internal family systems) this is where you’ll find the Self – the true you without judgment or condemnation. There’s no fear in this space. That, by itself, should be reason enough to go within, seeking your sacred space.

It can be frightening to try to find it because you don’t know what muck you’ll have to wade through to get there. Many things in the past are frightening but the key in this journey is to remember that those things are in the past. The past has no real power to hurt you. It’s how you view and interpret it. That’s where the power and fear come from. Remember the 2 arrow theory and keep that second arrow in your quiver

Can you take a few minutes to just sit quietly and see what comes up? What you feel and how you feel? If something begins to feel scary, try to sit with it and see if you can get to the other side of that fear.

Keep on sitting there just observing what pops up inside you. It’s not all meditation- it’s an attempt to simply be quiet and open for a short period of time.

Daily Gratitude: Maybe instead of saying “why me?” You could consider saying “what medicine is in front of me that I need?” Or “what lesson am I supposed to see here”?

Ivey mentioned before how much I don’t like telephone calls due to my childhood experience. But a week or so ago, I received a text from Chase indicating I had contacted them. I had not. Needless to say I was concerned that someone was trying to access my account. Without hesitation or thought, I picked up the phone and endured the unbelievable process of trying to reach a human being. As I was pushing this button and then that button, I began to think about the massive change in me that allowed me to make the call. I was shocked. Happy but shocked. It’s taken a long time to get to that point but it happened by having opportunities for making calls stuck right in front of my face for so long. That made this event significant enough (strong enough medicine) for me to face it head on.

What are some of the things you’d do anything to avoid? What “‘medicine” is hidden within?