Rough day at work left me feeling like a whiny baby. Decided to start reading this daily meditation book that's been collecting dust for some time now. Today's entry was about gratitude and it was the answer to my bratty day. This is from The Language of Letting Go by Melody Beattie.
August 1
Say thank you, until you mean it.
Thank God, life, and the universe for everyone and everything sent your way.
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. It can turn a meal into a feast, a house into a home, a stranger into a friend. It turns problems into gifts, failures into successes, the unexpected into perfect timing, and mistakes into important events. It can turn an existence into a real life, and disconnected situations into important and beneficial lessons. Gratitude makes sense of our past, brings peace for today, and creates a vision for tomorrow
Gratitude makes things right.
Gratitude turns negative energy into positive energy. There is no situation or circumstance so small or large that it is not susceptible to gratitude's power. We can start with who we are and what we have today, apply gratitude, then let it work its magic.
Say thank you, until you mean it. If you say it long enough, you will believe it.
Showing posts with label spirituality. Show all posts
Showing posts with label spirituality. Show all posts
Monday, August 1, 2011
Saturday, July 18, 2009
Foiled Again!
Yeah...totally skipped Friday. Whatevs. Intended to resurrect MUSIC FRIDAY but got sidetracked.
I started re-reading Traveling Mercies by Anne Lamott this week. It's one of my favorite books, but the last time I read it was years ago. TRAVESTY. Within the first few pages I remembered why I love this book and why Anne is one of my favorite writers. Her style is so easy and effortless. It reads like a friend talking to you from across the kitchen table.
The book is a non-fiction account of her journey to faith. As someone who struggles with faith (in everything) I've decided that it's a book I should read at least once a year to remind me that I am not alone. In the first part of the book (page 9) she writes,
"None of the adults in our circle believed. Believing meant that you were stupid. Ignorant people believed, uncouth people believed, and we were heavily couth. My dad was a writer, my parents were intellectuals...we were raised to believe in books and music and nature."
This bit resounds so strongly for me because I feel like a lot of the people in my life who consider themselves to be intellecutals exude this sentiment. Like being an intellectual and being spiritual are mutually exclusive. That opening yourself up to the possibility of a higher power is for the weak and naive. And really, I think that's sad. The arrogance of athiesm is something that athiests fail to see. To be so blindly sure, to claim to KNOW that something IS or ISN'T the truth, that God DOES or DOESN'T exist seems like a detour, it bypasses faith. To believe is to FEEL that something is true without having concrete evidence that it IS true. And I'm cool with that. Life is too short to be such a hardass about everything. I strive to live my life with joy and gratitude, to seek out truth and beauty in everyday experiences and to love everyone and everything as I want to be loved. I don't always succeed, but I'm trying. I think people who get so wound up about being right are missing the point. I'd rather be happy than be right. I've made a lot of mistakes in my life, but I'm growing. I'm learning. I'm trying to live righteously. Tomorrow is promised to no one, and if my life came crashing to an end, I'd feel fine because I know that I figured out that I'm not supposed to figure everything out. Life isn't about what you know but how you live. How you treat people. How you treat yourself. Every day has the potential to be the best day ever and it might very well be your last. How will you spend it?
I started re-reading Traveling Mercies by Anne Lamott this week. It's one of my favorite books, but the last time I read it was years ago. TRAVESTY. Within the first few pages I remembered why I love this book and why Anne is one of my favorite writers. Her style is so easy and effortless. It reads like a friend talking to you from across the kitchen table.
The book is a non-fiction account of her journey to faith. As someone who struggles with faith (in everything) I've decided that it's a book I should read at least once a year to remind me that I am not alone. In the first part of the book (page 9) she writes,
"None of the adults in our circle believed. Believing meant that you were stupid. Ignorant people believed, uncouth people believed, and we were heavily couth. My dad was a writer, my parents were intellectuals...we were raised to believe in books and music and nature."
This bit resounds so strongly for me because I feel like a lot of the people in my life who consider themselves to be intellecutals exude this sentiment. Like being an intellectual and being spiritual are mutually exclusive. That opening yourself up to the possibility of a higher power is for the weak and naive. And really, I think that's sad. The arrogance of athiesm is something that athiests fail to see. To be so blindly sure, to claim to KNOW that something IS or ISN'T the truth, that God DOES or DOESN'T exist seems like a detour, it bypasses faith. To believe is to FEEL that something is true without having concrete evidence that it IS true. And I'm cool with that. Life is too short to be such a hardass about everything. I strive to live my life with joy and gratitude, to seek out truth and beauty in everyday experiences and to love everyone and everything as I want to be loved. I don't always succeed, but I'm trying. I think people who get so wound up about being right are missing the point. I'd rather be happy than be right. I've made a lot of mistakes in my life, but I'm growing. I'm learning. I'm trying to live righteously. Tomorrow is promised to no one, and if my life came crashing to an end, I'd feel fine because I know that I figured out that I'm not supposed to figure everything out. Life isn't about what you know but how you live. How you treat people. How you treat yourself. Every day has the potential to be the best day ever and it might very well be your last. How will you spend it?
Thursday, November 13, 2008
Thoughts on a Thursday
Sometimes I catch myself staring off into space--my head is not empty, it's overflowing. It's like my capacity to function is on lockdown while the spillway clears. I think too much. There's too much in my head. There are two ways of dealing with this--distract yourself with mindless things like videos of kittens on the Internet so that you don't have to deal with the chaos in your brain OR purge the chaos in some form of release. My release is writing but I don't seem to be drawn to it lately. John has given me some therapeutical assignments to vent my anger or frustration onto paper and I have been reluctant to do them. I think I'm afraid that if I really let go, if I really say everything I want to say the way I want to say it, something bad will happen. These assignments are just for me--no one else will see them. No one else will know the things I'm venting about, and yet I have procrastinated doing them for months. I have trouble letting go. I know this. I can see it. I can point it out. And the fact that I see it, know it, admit it and still cannot let go is my biggest challenge right now. I feel so stuck. I feel like I am about to burst, always about to burst and keep everything on lockdown, wandering around like a zombie because I'm afraid of being honest. I pray for balance. I pray that I can honor myself and grow and become decisive and independent while still holding onto my considerate nature. I want to find the balance between being selfish and selfless because I know that's where peace is. I want to take care of myself more and worry about others less. I want to stop being judgemental and putting labels on things and just live and be happy. I want to stop analyzing things and thinking so much. I want to start now.
Tuesday, August 19, 2008
Tom Robbins excerpt...
Love this. Please enjoy.
-Mandy
"If you need to visualize the soul, think of it as a cross between a wolf
howl, a photon, and a dribble of dark molasses. But what it really is, as
near as I can tell, is a packet of information. It's a program, a piece of
hyperspatial software designed explicitly to interface with the Mystery.
Not a mystery, mind you, the Mystery. The one that can never be solved.
"To one degree or another, everybody is connected to the Mystery, and
everybody secretly yearns to expand the connection. That requires
expanding the soul. These things can enlarge the soul: laughter, danger,
imagination, meditation, wild nature, passion, compassion, psychedelics,
beauty, iconoclasm, and driving around in the rain with the top down.
These things can diminish it: fear, bitterness, blandness, trendiness,
egotism, violence, corruption, ignorance, grasping, shining, and eating
ketchup on cottage cheese.
"Data in our psychic program is often nonlinear, nonhierarchical, archaic,
alive, and teeming with paradox. Simply booting up is a challenge, if not
for no other reason than that most of us find acknowledging the
unknowable and monitoring its intrusions upon the familiar and mundane
more than a little embarrassing. More immediately, by waxing soulful you
will have granted yourself the possibility of ecstatic participation in what
the ancients considered a divinely animated universe. And on a day to day
basis, folks, it doesn't get any better than that."
- Tom Robbins, *Esquire* magazine, October 1993
-Mandy
"If you need to visualize the soul, think of it as a cross between a wolf
howl, a photon, and a dribble of dark molasses. But what it really is, as
near as I can tell, is a packet of information. It's a program, a piece of
hyperspatial software designed explicitly to interface with the Mystery.
Not a mystery, mind you, the Mystery. The one that can never be solved.
"To one degree or another, everybody is connected to the Mystery, and
everybody secretly yearns to expand the connection. That requires
expanding the soul. These things can enlarge the soul: laughter, danger,
imagination, meditation, wild nature, passion, compassion, psychedelics,
beauty, iconoclasm, and driving around in the rain with the top down.
These things can diminish it: fear, bitterness, blandness, trendiness,
egotism, violence, corruption, ignorance, grasping, shining, and eating
ketchup on cottage cheese.
"Data in our psychic program is often nonlinear, nonhierarchical, archaic,
alive, and teeming with paradox. Simply booting up is a challenge, if not
for no other reason than that most of us find acknowledging the
unknowable and monitoring its intrusions upon the familiar and mundane
more than a little embarrassing. More immediately, by waxing soulful you
will have granted yourself the possibility of ecstatic participation in what
the ancients considered a divinely animated universe. And on a day to day
basis, folks, it doesn't get any better than that."
- Tom Robbins, *Esquire* magazine, October 1993
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