If you were asked to describe how you begin your day, are your mornings filled with rushing around, dragging kids out of bed, fumbling to find your shoes, dreading the bus ride to the city and complaining about going to a job you do not like? For most women, the mornings are not filled with an hour of meditation, some time for reading, a quite breakfast with the family discussing their plans for the day. Yet how we set up our day in the morning will most likely be responsible for how our day progresses.
Although we would love to start our days with peace and quiet and a cup of coffee while we sit by the fireplace, limited time robs us of the opportunity to do this. But what if there was a way to bring a positive spin into the early morning that would last through the day?
While you brush your teeth, or feed the dog, or ride on the bus, or walk into the office – give thanks.
Give thanks for the house you live in, the family that surrounds you, the people on the bus who smile at you, the change in your purse, the clothes you wear, the job you have. Give thanks for your health, your dog, the food on the table. Thanks for your relatives, friends and co-workers.
Now it may seem improbable to be grateful when the kids are sick, you missed the bus, the boss is angry, and you’re in a rut. And it seems almost impossible to be thankful when there is no money in the bank, the mortgage is overdue and you were passed over for that promotion. Worries about family, work and money steal your days and take away the ability to enjoy life. Living becomes existing.
But even at these most despairing moments, you need to reach beyond the “liabilities” to find those things to add to the “asset” side of your life’s ledger.
By starting the day in this spirit, you set up your day to be prosperous and satisfying. If you start the day feeling stressed and lacking, you will have a day of stress and lack. But if you take an inventory in your mind of your life’s assets, you will realize just what a rich woman you really are. You will see that you have much to be grateful for and that you are probably taking for granted the abundance that already exists in your life. The world around you will give you more if you appreciate what you already have. If you sow seeds of lack, you will reap lack. But if you sow seeds of abundance you will reap more of the same.
Melody Beattie wrote in The Language of Letting it Go, “Gratitude unlocks the fullness of life. It turns what we have into enough and more. It turns denial into acceptance, chaos to order, confusion to clarity.”
Begin each day with gratitude; because if you do this every day for a month, you will simply not be the same person you are today. By giving thanks each day for the abundance you already have in your life, you will set into motion an ancient spiritual law that says, the more you have and are grateful for, the more you will receive.
And in the spirit of the Thanksgiving holiday, I am thankful & grateful for being able to share these thoughts with you.
Almost 30 years ago, when my son, Christopher, was 10 years old, a group of his friends had gathered in our family room to play video games. The boys were talking about the hottest new game on the street, and as I passed by, Christopher called out to me, “Mom, can you buy this new game for me for Christmas?” I responded with, “We will see. Maybe Santa Claus will bring it for you.” With that the other boys began to laugh as they chided him with “You mean you still believe in Santa Claus?” And in a voice barely above a whisper, hoping I would not hear, Christopher replied, “No, I don’t; but my Mom still does.”