The inspiration for my Gratitude Journal experiment is Rhonda Byrne, the creator of The Secret movie. But it isn’t the movie I’m following but Rhonda’s book, The Magic. The first exercise (I like to think of them as ‘games’) is Count Your Blessings. The assignment is to write a list of 10 blessings in our lives, which is what I’m doing here on this blog. But there’s more.
According to Byrne, we need to take our list and do two things with it:
* The first is to say “thank you” three times after writing/reading each reason.
* Then, we need to actually FEEL as much gratitude as possible. Somewhere I read the notion of imagining that your gratitude is coming from your heart as a physical energy, which is what I’ve been practicing.
So, if you’re interested in your own gratitude journal, and I really hope you are, be sure to follow up each reason to be grateful with the two ideas above. And, to Rhonda Byrne: thank you, thank you, thank you.
My Thank You Note For The Day
1. Today I went to O’Charley’s for lunch and that is always fun – especially since Wednesdays are free pie days. Sadly, I don’t eat the pie because the crust has wheat in it but my son gets two pieces, because he gets mine. So he’s VERY happy that I’m ‘into this wheat free, gluten free business’. :-)
2. Do you ever think about how much you use your hands and fingers? Yet we take this blessing for granted. I’ve read that our ‘opposable thumb’ is a powerful reason that we humans have evolved and can use tools so effectively. So right now I’m thanking my fingers for allowing me to type these gratitude entries and am sending blessings to my healthy hands and fingers.
3. I love Dr. Pepper. Yeah, that evil soft drink is aces with me. I don’t keep it in my house, though, because I’d drink it all day long so every morning, as soon as I get dressed, I make a trip to my nearby Quik Trip. I get my one-and-only DP of the day and it’s my “official” way to begin the morning. I love QT, too. It’s always clean and everyone is friendly. So thank you, thank you, thank you to my morning ritual.
4. On today’s trip to QT, the lady in front of me was missing one of her legs from the knee down. She was wearing shorts and was totally up front about her artificial leg, so good for her. I wondered if I would only wear long pants, if it were me. Anyway, I felt a surge of gratitude for my two healthy legs. Our legs and feet do so much for us and we take them for granted, rather than blessing them. Today I noticed and plan on sending thanks to my legs and feet all day long.
5. Every Christmas, my daughter makes a calendar for me. It has twelve pages, one for each month. Big deal, right? Except … every page has multiple pictures of my granddaughter. So I really love my calendar and enjoy seeing her beautiful little face every day. Lucky me.
6. I just used a nail file and what could be more common and ordinary than a file? But what did people do before they were invented? I’ve read about guys trimming their nails with a big knife which sounds pretty terrifying to me. One slip and – oops, missing a finger. So thanks to whoever had the brilliance to invent a nail file and they’re so accessible and inexpensive.
7. This morning I found a dead roach on my bathroom floor. How can ANYONE be grateful for that? We had a pest service and they changed their policy and refused to come inside the house anymore. So my son decided that he would take over that job. He sprays our house at least once a month. Result: we’re more bug-free than we’ve ever been. And every fall, insects start coming in the house. I guess they somehow feel that colder weather is coming. But now they die. Good! I feel compassion for animals and birds, but bugs… nope!
8. I worked at a job for many years and now I don’t. What that means is that I can sleep as late as I wish. This morning it was almost 8AM when I woke up. What a luxury to get up when I choose. Most of the world can’t do that. I am so blessed.
9. Since the rains last weekend, our lawn has really ‘greened’ up. Instead of being a pale green, it is a deep and vibrant green, meaning it’s pretty happy with life. Since the leaves will be changing soon, it’s great to have this last gasp of summer color.
10. Today I’m wearing some red loop earrings that I really like. I’ve never seen anything like them and I’ve had them for so long that I don’t remember where I got them. I wear them often because I really like red clothing and they’re funky and fun.
We are truly surrounded by reasons to be grateful. All we have to do is notice them.
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