Gratitude and Joy.

  The Secret Garden  -“Both abundance and lack exist simultaneously in our lives, as parallel realities.  It is always our conscious choice which secret garden we shall tend.  The invisible underbrush holding us back is our own thoughts.  When we chose not to focus on what is missing from our lives but on the abundance that’s present – love, health, family, friends, work and personal pursuits that bring us pleasure – the wasteland falls away and we experience joy in the real lives we live each day!”  -Sarah Ban Breathnach http://simpleabundance.com/

When I am going through a difficult time, which I am sure you all know well.  Feeling a little sorry for myself, feeling overwhelmed, feeling bored, feeling like I should be doing more (or less), feeling like running away. . . .(add your own!). At this time, I know exactly what I need, I need to go inward.  I need some time to myself for meditation, contemplation and regeneration. One of the first things I will do is reach for my grateful journal.  I read back and remember all of the wonderful things, people and times in my life and I add a few more entries. Then I will spend some time in nature which is very grounding and calming for me.  From this new found clearer perspective I can examine my thoughts and see that I have been allowing that feeling of lack to become my reality when I need to return to the joy of all that is abundant in my life. It seems that when we dwell on the negative we just seem to attract more negative and vice versa for positivity.  This always confirms my belief in the law of attraction.  I can see that I have been caught up in the downward spiral of negativity and I do not like it!!  Do we experience joy in this state? Absolutely not!  The only true way to joy is through gratitude (pleasure is something entirely different and I will talk about that one day).   When we become grateful for what we have in our lives then we are better able to give to others.  When we serve others at the same time that we feel “filled up” in our own lives we will experience that wonderful joy that feeds our souls. We chose abundance over lack!

This principle has been very apparent here in my home city after the flooding we experienced.  People who had not been affected themselves came out by the thousands to help those in need.  They did it because they were grateful for what they had and recognized that the people affected had much less (physically and emotionally).  They came out day after day without complaint and if you asked any one of them they would tell you it was just as rewarding for them as it was for the people they were helping.  And as others saw this spirit of giving it inspired them to help as well.  Yes it was difficult to see all of the devastation and emotional to watch people who lost so much.   But it was also moving to see how the human spirits combined, the fortunate and less fortunate in a dance of gratitude, appreciation and joy.