"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. Gratitude makes sense of our past, brings peace for today and creates a vision for tomorrow."
-Melody Beattie
-Melody Beattie
There are several tools that I'm going to suggest you use as you begin your inner exploration. While all of them will help you become happier and more content and will nurture your creativity, this first tool could change the quality of your life beyond belief: it's what I call a daily gratitude journal. I have a beautiful blank book and each night before I go to bed, I write down five things that I can be grateful about that day. Some days my list will be filled with amazing things, most days just simple joys.
Other days--rough ones--I might think tht I don't have five things to be grateful for, so I'll write down my basics: my health, my husband and daughter, their health, my animals, my home, my friends, and the comfortable bed that I'm about to get into, as well as the fact that the day's over. That's okay. Real life isn't always going to be perfect or go our way, but the recurring acknowledgment of what is working in our lives can help us not only survive, but surmount our difficulties.
The gratitude journal has to be the first step on the Simple Abundance path or it just won't work for you. Simplicity, order, harmony, beauty, and joy--all the other principles that can transform your life will not blossom and flourish without gratitude. It you want to travel this journey with me, the gratitude journal is not an option.
Why? Because you simply will not be the same person two months from now after consciously giving thanks each day for the abundance that exists in your life. And you have set in motion an ancient spiritual law; the more you have and are grateful for, the more will be given you.
I have told you that the Simple Abundance path is a transformative process. We're going to work on one principle for one month (online) at a time, trying to weave that principle into the fabric of our daily life.
Let's begin today with gratitude. Select the prettiest, most inviting blank book you can find for your gratitude journal. Make a pleasant outing for its selection. Note the fabric or design of the cover. The look and feel of the paper. Do you prefer ruled pages or blank? As an online member, you have access to a computerized page to complete each day. Perhaps you can find a book with a ribbon clasp. One of the most valuable lessons Simple Abundance has taught me is that it is in the smallest details that the flavor of life is savored.
As the months pass and you fill your journal with blessings, an inner shift in your reality will occur. Soon you will be delighted to discover how content and hopeful you are feeling. As you focus on the abundance rather than on the lack in your life, you will be designing a wonderful new blueprint for the future. This sense of fulfillment is gratitude at work, transforming your dreams into reality.
A French proverb reminds us that "Gratitude is the heart's memory." Begin this day to explore and integrate this beautiful, life-affirming principle into your life, and the miracle you have been seeking will unfold to your wonder and amazement.
