Appreciating everyone and everything I have in my life – that is what I am working on this week.
Gratitude is not just for people who are fortunate. Gratitude is cultivated by purposely paying attention to things that you appreciate.
We can also reflect on how life would be without certain gifts – our senses: hearing, seeing, tasting, touching, smelling, pleasure. The smiles, kindness and love around us, flowers, sunlight, paperclips, refrigerators, flush toilets, civil society, the internet and iPhones.
“Piglet noticed that even though he had a Very Small Heart, it could hold a rather large amount of Gratitude.” -A A Milne
I will invite to have an inquiry into your heart – by asking yourself…what do I love? begin to mentally whisper whatever comes to mind – I love sunset – or name a person you love – or I love hot chocolate. Keep mentioning whatever comes to mind that you love….. as you reflect, you sense the word appreciate might be more fitting or what I am grateful for, or what matters to you – keep on whispering….
Do not let the day slip through your fingers
but live it fully now, this breath, this moment, catapulting you into full awareness.
Time is precious, minutes disappearing like water into sand, unless you choose to pay attention.
Since you do not know the number of your days,
treat each as if it is your last.
Be that compassionate with yourself
that open and loving to others,
that determined to give what is yours to give and to let in the energy and wonder of this world.
Experience everything, writing, relating, eating, doing all the little necessary tasks of life as if for the first time…
pushing nothing aside as unimportant.
You have received these same reminders many times before
this time, take them into your soul.
For if you choose to live this way
you will be rich beyond measure, grateful beyond words,
and the day of your death will arrive with no regrets.