Posted on by BWThomas

Is there room for improvement in our lives?

Painting by Belynda Wilson Thomas

Ambition is the path to success. Persistence is the vehicle you arrive in. Bill Bradley

Is it time to make resolutions, plans, and promises to ourselves? Do we do this on a daily, weekly, monthly, or yearly schedule? The more often we set goals the more effective we are likely to be. We need big goals, small goals, long-term goals, and short-term goals, aspirational goals, mundane goals, and once-in-a-lifetime goals.

Do we want too much out of life or want too little? Do we expect to accomplish more than is possible or less than is expected? How do we balance our resources, time, and energy, our expectations of ourselves, and the expectations others have of us? If we gave ourselves a report card for how we are doing would we be an A, B, C, D, E, or F student of life? How would we be doing if we let someone else write up our report card?

Are we where we want to be for our stage in life? Is this comparing ourselves to others or what we wanted out of life? If we need to change one thing to make life better what is that one thing? Is it more time for ourselves, managing or making more money, planning the trips we’ve always wanted to take, health and fitness, or making time to be creative?

If we have one thing in our life we focus on that would make our life better it will of course be the hardest thing, isn’t that the way it always is? If health and fitness are what we believe focusing on would pay us the greatest dividends we will find a host of reasons why we can’t fit a walk into our daily schedule, changing our diet is not workable, and eating home-cooked food is too hard. If finances are our biggest challenge we won’t see how to cut our spending or increase our earnings.

Small changes lead to big changes, what is a small change we could make in the area that most needs a makeover? As we get close to the New Year is it time to think of changes we want to make, is it something we want to add, or something we want to take away?

It’s not what we do once in a while that shapes our lives, but what we do consistently. Tony Robbins

In Hal Elrod’s book The Miracle Equation, he tells us unwavering faith and extraordinary effort equal miracles. What do we need to have faith in we can change, and put extraordinary effort into changing? Is there something in our life we’ve never quite mastered that with faith and extraordinary effort, could make changes we’ve always wanted to make?

What if we pick one thing to focus on in the coming year? Every day, every week, and every month our goal is to believe we can change it and put extraordinary effort into making this happen. Where will we be in a year if we do it, in five years, and ten years?

When we get one thing moving in the right direction we can focus our unwavering faith and extraordinary effort on something else. What if changing one thing impacts other areas of our lives positively? What if we could overcome whatever we never quite feel we have control of?

Hal Elrod gives us a formula to make a deal with ourselves. I am committed to maintaining Unwavering Faith that I will _____________________________ insert your mission, and I will continue putting forth Extraordinary Effort until I do. No matter what there is no other option.

He advises us to review our commitment every day, figure out what our extraordinary effort will be, and hold ourselves accountable. It is daily actions over time, that lead to big results. What if, dependability, consistency, and being able to improve, are more important than talent?

Small disciplines repeated with consistency every day lead to great achievements gained slowly over time. John C. Maxwell

The key to success is consistency. And right now, the only way for you to actually take action is to believe in yourself. Zak Frazer

Daily, consistent, focused, faithful expectation raises the miracle power of achieving your dreams. John Di Lemme

Thank you for reading this post. Please return and read more and have a blessed day filled with gratitude, joy, and love.

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Thank you for reading my books, and a special thank you to those who leave a review on Goodreads and Amazon. If you click on the Amazon link and purchase an item I receive a small percentage of the sale through the Amazon Affiliate program.

Posted on by BWThomas

What do we know for sure that isn’t true?

Painting by Belynda Wilson Thomas

The starting point for a better world is the belief that it is possible. Norman Cousins

My grandson tells me with certainty that lettuce and apples don’t go together. He’s talking about my purple cabbage apple dish on the table for dinner the other night. He doesn’t differentiate between cabbage and lettuce but knows what he knows. Where does this certainty come from, and how many of us suffer from the certainty of things which are not true?

How many of us have been held back by believing things that weren’t true, we didn’t have enough, guts, determination, smarts, luck, education, opportunity, money, looks, courage, etc? Looking back I see so many missed opportunities, why didn’t I see them when there was time to make the most of them? Taking advantage of opportunities is hard work, and sometimes I realize I didn’t work as hard as I should have to make things happen.

I’ve been better at helping my husband in his business than I was at trying to develop one of my own. It is sobering to realize all the things we coulda, shoulda, and woulda done, if only. What was holding us back?

Perhaps life unfolds as it should, and ideas and opportunities find their home with those willing to do what needs to be done. Even the best of us can’t do everything, and take advantage of every opportunity, but it seems some people have vision and some don’t.

What if a good life is learning from our missteps and our accomplishments, but what if we learn the most from our failures? Not wanting to fail or make a mistake leads to a smaller life. Every time we risk failure, we risk success and sometimes we might fear success just as much. What would happen if we took the chance, became a big success, and our lives changed forever? We love our life and worry we might not love our new circumstances as much.

Beliefs have the power to create and the power to destroy. Human beings have the awesome ability to take any experience of their lives and create a meaning that disempowers them or one that can literally save their lives. Tony Robbins

Do we want to stand out and fit in at the same time? Do we have to choose one? Life is about choices, and what we choose to believe might be one of the greatest choices we make. What we believe about ourselves, the world, and what is possible creates our habits, and our habits create our lives. Self-control might be the most important achievement we can attain. Aristotle said, “We become just by doing just acts, temperate by doing temperate acts, brave by doing brave acts.”

Self-control allows us to rule over ourselves, and create habits that work for us instead of against us. What if our habits hold us back the most, and if we develop better habits, we create a better life? What if courage is a habit, hard work is a habit, but it isn’t just working hard, it’s learning what to work hard at?

What if what holds us back the most is our beliefs, habits, comfort zone, and fears? What if a good life is available to all of us if we make the right choices, create the right habits, and take advantage of opportunities in front of us? What if small changes over time create big dividends in our lives? What if not doing the small thing holds us back, we could do the small thing, but we want a big thing, not realizing by refusing to make small changes in the right direction, we never see the big changes it would become.

Life is about choice, and we choose what to believe about ourselves and others. We can believe lettuce and apples don’t go together, or can we expand the boundaries of our beliefs, and perhaps our lives?

We all live under the same sky, but we don’t all have the same horizon. Konrad Adenhauer

In order to gain new experiences, to expand your horizons, to give fate – or serendipity or whatever you want to call it – a chance. And that only happens if we say yes to things. Charlotte Lucas

It is the power of belief that causes things to happen in our lives. Zeenat Merchant Syal

Thank you for reading this post. Please come back and read some more, and have a blessed day filled with gratitude, joy, and love.

To subscribe, comment, and see archives or categories of posts click on the picture and scroll to the end.

Thank you for reading my books, and a special thank you to everyone who has left a review on Goodreads and Amazon. If you click on the Amazon link and purchase an item I receive a small percentage of the sale through the Amazon affiliate program.

Posted on by BWThomas

Choices change the trajectory of our lives.

Painting by Belynda Wilson Thomas

The major reason for setting a goal is for what it makes you do to accomplish it. This will always be far greater value that what you get. Jim Rohn

If we told someone our highest priority is our family, would they think it by looking at us? It makes sense everyone’s priority is their family, what is there to prioritize above family? A lot of us know a better diet and exercise would make us healthier, but we can’t quite integrate it into our lives. We might know we could do something to create a stronger family, but we have to do more than think about changes we need to make, we have to take the chances and opportunities when they present themselves and build on what we already have.

What if we are trying to think too big when a small decision in the right direction is what we need? In Hal Elrod’s book, “The Miracle Equation” he talks about asking his son what do you want to do, we can do anything at all. His son said, “I want you to play with me in my room.”

Someone said if we want happy kids, “Spend half the money, and twice the time on them.” Our little grandson at two-and-a-half wants to go wherever we go. “We go lunch,” he’ll say. We won’t always be able to spend this time with him. My parents didn’t live close so they couldn’t do little things with my kids, and by moving far away from home I robbed them of the chance to know their grandparents well.

Grandparents are a luxury some of us never get, we live far from them, or they’ve already passed. If we are lucky enough to live close to our grandchildren we can play a part in each other’s lives.

I’m thinking these thoughts as this week would have been Mom’s one-hundredth birthday, I lost her but gained a granddaughter this year.

If we are part of a family we will experience the pain of loss, but if we don’t build a family we face empty years. If we are the architects of our lives, we don’t have complete control, and many would have liked to build a family that never could.

Wherever we are in our lives, we have choices to make, and those choices will change the trajectory of our lives. A small change can make a big difference. If we don’t have enough people in our life we can join groups of like-minded people, or people who aren’t like us we want to learn from.

The world we live in – the life we perceive – is a perfect reflection, a mirror image, of our internal reality. Patrick Connor

We can take a class or even a one-night workshop, learn something new, or get back into something we did years ago. Our lives contract and expand, we need to figure out what cycle we are in and make the best of it.

Is it time to bring some form of creativity into our lives, or time for a new companion to walk with, perhaps a four-legged friend, or connecting with a neighbor who also would like a walking partner? Maybe we have too many activities and need to cut back. Life is about choices at every age and every stage. We need to be willing to widen our horizons if we want change in our lives, to get out of our comfort zone even if it is just an overture of friendship to someone we meet.

Is there a change we know we should make, and could make without upending everything in our lives to make it better?

Be willing to be uncomfortable. Be comfortable being uncomfortable. It may get tough, but it’s a small price to pay for living a dream. Peter McWilliams

In all human affairs there are efforts, and there are results, and the strength of the effort is the measure of the result. James Allen

It’s a lack of faith that makes people afraid of meeting challenges, and I believed in myself. Muhammad Ali

Thank you for reading this post. Please come back and read some more. Have a blessed day filled with gratitude, joy, and love.

To subscribe, comment, and see archives or categories of posts click on the picture and scroll to the end.

Thank you for reading my books, and a special thank you to those who leave a review on Amazon and Goodreads. If you click on the Amazon link and purchase an item I receive a small percentage of the sale through the Amazon affiliate program.

Posted on by BWThomas

Remembrance Day 2024

Painting by Belynda Wilson Thomas

In Flanders fields the poppies blow. Between the crosses, row on row.That mark our place; and in the sky. The larks, still bravely singing, fly. Scarce heard amid the guns below.

John McCrae

Remembrance Day is a day to remember sacrifice and service. I’m seeing photos of service men and women on Facebook. What a group of brave men and women. Mom, my fountain of information on the Second World War and the great depression died this year, and now I have to rely only on history books.

She told me her first husband never felt he fit anywhere like he had in the army. At our writer’s group on Saturday, I heard a quote, “What hardens an egg, softens a potato.” We don’t know when we are in circumstances if we will be the egg or the potato. The army made people into people they didn’t know they could be, and it destroyed lives, even if they came out with all limbs still attached.

Will we rise above the circumstances or be destroyed by them, and is it our choice? I saw a post on Facebook about spilled coffee and how whatever is in our cup is what we’ll spill, so we need to fill our cup with gratitude, joy, love, understanding, forgiveness, etc. But, one person responded to that post as if it was blaming the victim.

I don’t think people should not feel wronged by injustice. Wrongs that can be righted should be, and equal opportunity should be offered to all as much as possible.

Terrible things have happened to people who overcame them and lived great lives, and some have given up in the face of adversity and never rose again. Is this the choice, not what happens to us, but how we react?  

Patriotism is not dying for one’s country, it is living for one’s country. Perhaps that is not as romantic but it is better. Agnes Macphail

We don’t know what will happen in our lives, or how we will react. We think we will take things in stride, roll with the punches, and overcome adversity, but until it happens we’ll never know. We don’t even know if it is better to become harder or softened by life. Too hard is brittle, and too soft is mush, but somewhere in between is the sweet spot.

I was blessed to have a mother who lived through a lot, life threw a lot of punches at her, especially in the early years, but she came through with a good outlook on life.

Is a lot of life what we make of the circumstances we find ourselves in? Do we make things better or worse by the attitude we choose? Is choosing our mindset within our control?

We owe a debt to the men and women who served. Growing up and living in peace and plenty isn’t something we can take for granted. We never know when we might have to take a stand, and we won’t all agree on when, how, and what to fight for. Can we all say, I am willing to do, what I can do for my country?

Our obligations to our country never cease but with our lives. John Adams

As we express our gratitude, we must never forget that the highest appreciation is not to utter words but to live by them. John F. Kennedy

Courage is almost a contradiction in terms. It means a strong desire to live taking the form of a readiness to die. G.K. Chesterton

Thank you for reading this post. Please come back and read some more. Have a blessed day filled with gratitude, joy, and love.

To subscribe, comment, and see archives or categories of posts click on the picture and scroll to the end.

Thank you for reading my books, and a special thank you to those who leave a review on Goodreads and Amazon. If you click on the Amazon link and purchase an item I receive a small percentage of the sale through the Amazon affiliate program.

Posted on by BWThomas

Journaling is a practice we can use to live our best life.

Painting by Belynda Wilson Thomas

Your journal is like your best friend. You don’t have to pretend with it, you can be honest and write exactly how you feel. Bukola Ogunwale

Unwavering faith and extraordinary effort lead to great things in our lives. One of the worst things we do is give up before we reach the end of the time we’ve set to achieve our goal. Often the last days, weeks, or months make a big difference, but it can be tempting to quit before we reach our goal, when it seems far away.

What if failure happens when we give up too soon? We don’t set enough goals, or we don’t have faith in ourselves to go after what we want. Journaling is a practice that can help us sort out what we want, and if we read what we’ve written over the years we will realize many of our fears never came to pass, and by putting them on the page we freed our mind to concentrate on other things.

Journaling is a process we can use to manage anxiety, and healthily express our feelings, and it can help us identify what makes us anxious. It might help us become aware of unhealthy thought patterns and challenge ourselves to change them. When I think this, I should think this instead. When I’m feeling this way I should go for a walk.

In our journal we can question our thoughts, try on ideas, and investigate what interests us, we can figure out who we are and who we would like to become.

I’ve come across ideas on the negative effects of journaling, and as someone who has kept a journal for almost fifty years, I question what could be negative about it. If we read our journals we might think we were more negative than we are, because we tend to dump our negative feelings onto the page. This frees our mind for the positive things. Our journal is not a repository for everything going on in our lives – at least mine isn’t.

I write entirely to find out what I’m thinking, what I’m looking at, what I see, and what it means. What I want and what I fear. Joan Didion

A journal is not another thing to tick off on my to-do list. It is not an onerous practice. It is something I get to do, not something I have to do. If you watch videos or read articles on journaling you will find each person that journals has a different way of doing it. Each one of us must create a practice that works for us, and we shouldn’t beat ourselves up for not writing in it as often as we think we should, or not creating a pretty journal.

One of the reasons for putting illustrations in our journal is sometimes we can’t express in words what is going on in our lives, or we don’t want what we are thinking to be found by someone and used against us. We can use Neurographic art which is dumping what is in our mind onto the page as a scribble and then embellishing it and turning it into a work of art by darkening lines, creating and adding shapes, and adding color, or leaving it black and white.

We can create patterns using straight lines, C-shapes, S-shapes, circles, and dots. We can create unlimited patterns, and there are set patterns called Zen tangles which are copy-written patterns. Anyone can use the patterns but only certified teachers can teach them, and the same goes for Neurographic art, but the concepts behind both are simple. I question copywriting patterns as if someone can own the creative process.

Journaling is a practice that can help us create a life we love, become the person we would like to be, and track our growth and goals. One practice I’m adopting from another journal keeper is writing quotes and great ideas inside the front cover, and writing my goals inside the back cover – two spaces I’ve left mostly blank over all these years.

If you want to start a journal let it develop as a practice that fits into your life. If you miss days, weeks, or months of entries, pick it up and write when you are in the mood. I’ve missed days, weeks, and months, but never years.

Your journal will stand as a chronicle of your growth, your hopes, your fears, your dreams, your ambitions, your sorrows, your serendipities. Kathleen Adams

A journal can offer you a place to be someone, anyone, who you want to be. Brian Ledger

Journal what you love, what you hate, what’s in your head, what’s important. Journaling organizes your thoughts; allows you to see things in a concrete way that otherwise you might not see. Kay WalkingStick

Thank you for reading this post. Please come back and read some more. Have a blessed day filled with gratitude, joy, and love.

To subscribe, comment, see archives or categories of posts click on the picture and scroll to the end.

Thank you for reading my books, and a special thank you to those who leave a review on Goodreads and Amazon. If you click on the Amazon link and purchase an item I receive a small percentage of the sale through the Amazon affiliate program.

Posted on by BWThomas

Being creative is its own reward.

Painting by Belynda Wilson Thomas

The worst enemy to creativity is self-doubt. Sylvia Plath

What an interesting weekend! On Saturday I attended Breakthrough To Writer’s Success put on by the Mississauga Arts Council and hosted the last event of the day, the Self-Publishing Panel.

When we are part of things where we feel out of our league but others think we belong is intimidating, but wonderful. The keynote address was by Eric Walters, who has written 120 books, won over 100 awards, and presented to more than 1.5 million students worldwide. He is a writer who does a lot of research for his books. When he talked about climbing Mount Kilimanjaro, desert sand storms, and co-founding a children’s program in Kenya we were inspired to reach higher.

A woman asked if she could have the seat next to me. She has had the most incredible life as a singer, and event planner, and now wants to write a book. I was amazed sitting beside someone so accomplished I had a little advice to offer as a self-published author.

If we call ourselves writers but haven’t written anything in four years, can we still call ourselves writers? It’s a good question and the woman who was asked this returned to the questioner and told him she started writing again. We have to watch we don’t talk about our writing more than we write.

We can spend our time going to events, book clubs, and writer’s groups without getting any writing done. I’ve done this with art and writing, often I would find myself going to bookstores, buying books on art or writing instead of doing art or writing. It is great to have a library of art and writing books but unless we practice the craft, we don’t progress, and that idea was pushed throughout the day. Writers write and thinking about writing is not writing, it is a faster or slower process for some of us, but persistence is important.

To practice any art, no matter how well or badly, is a way to make your soul grow. So do it. Kurt Vonnegut

Life is a journey, and where it will take us we cannot know. Inspiring his students by writing about them and where they lived started Eric Walter’s writing journey, and what a journey it has been. The singer I sat beside started as a cast member of, “Jesus Christ Superstar.” It isn’t so much where we start, but where we end up that inspires others. What people overcome, what they learn, and what keeps them going is inspiring.

We are where we are, we’ve done what we’ve done, but the future spreads before each of us, and what we do with it is up to us. Serendipity, luck, and faith play a role, but if it is to be, it is up to me, is also important. Twenty or thirty years will go by whether we do anything or not. We are told, “We can do anything,” but do we believe it? Are we willing to get out of our comfort zone?

If there is something we want to do we haven’t done yet, what is holding us back? If we don’t have what we want and someone tells us no; how is that worse? What if it takes ten no’s to get to yes? What if it takes twenty? What is the worst thing that can happen if we work hard to make our dreams come true? If all our dreams are on the other side of our comfort zone, don’t we have to get out of our comfort zone if we want them to come true and lead a more interesting life?

I’m not advocating giving up day jobs or security, family is still the most important thing, but we still need to grow and develop. Creativity feeds our soul, and finding ways to bring it into our lives is worth it.

Make visible what, without you, might perhaps never have been seen. Oprah Winfrey

A creative life is an amplified life. It’s a bigger life, a happier life, an expanded life, and a hell of a lot more interesting life. Elizabeth Gilbert

There is no doubt that creativity is the most important human resource of all. Without creativity, there would be no progress, and we would be forever repeating the same patterns. Edward De Bono

Thank you for reading this post. Please come back and read some more, and have a blessed day filled with gratitude, joy, and love.

To subscribe, comment, and see archives or categories of posts click on the picture and scroll to the end.

Thank you for reading my books, and a special thank you to those who leave reviews on Goodreads and Amazon. If you click on the Amazon link and purchase an item I receive a small percentage of the sale through the Amazon affiliate program.

Posted on by BWThomas

Siblings are the greatest gift we are given after, life itself.

Painting by Belynda Wilson Thomas

The bond between a sister and a brother is sometimes tightly woven, sometimes loosely held but never broken. Unknown

Today my heart is filled with gratitude. My daughter went into early labor and delivered a healthy baby girl. She’s a tiny five pounds fourteen ounces, Mommy and baby are doing well. When things start happening before term we worry and every precious day is a blessing but she decided she was getting out of there, and came with a force.

Today our grandson will visit his new sister. At two-and-a-half, he is missing his mommy and this morning he asked me to make her coffee. He saved her popcorn the first night, and yesterday he saved her part of a gummy and licorice. He was very stoic yesterday and I thought he was waiting for his Daddy to come home standing at the window, but when I went to see what he was up to he ripped the wallpaper in the office. He did this when he was much younger and ripping it yesterday is a sign of how hard he was trying to be good, but he needed an outlet for his frustration.

I can’t remember when my brother next to me was born, but I think I can remember when my youngest brother was born and Grandma and Grandpa came to visit. How do we process a new baby coming into the family, is it the best gift ever, or do we feel a loss in status we never recover from?

When I had my daughter I saw it from the mother’s point of view, now I am watching it from my grandson’s point of view, and it is interesting to watch and hear what he is saying as he takes in this momentous event.

Sister and brother friendship is the rainbow between two hearts sharing seven colors: feelings, love, sadness, happiness, truth, faith, secrets, and respect. Unknown

The first night he slept alone and when his grandpa asked if he had a good sleep, he said, “No, I miss my mommy.” Last night he woke up not long after going to bed and didn’t want to go back to bed, so when he went back to sleep I stayed with him and all night a little hand reached out to see if I was still there. This morning, Grandpa asked if he slept well, and he said, “Yes, Grandma slept with me.”

Meeting our new sister or brother has to be one of the biggest days in our lives, even if we don’t remember it, as most of us don’t. Does sibling rivalry start now, and if it does, how do we create a supportive sibling relationship instead of the rivalry that sometimes exists?

Having siblings is one of the great joys in life, and those who don’t have siblings might think they know what they are missing but truly they can’t understand the depth of the sibling relationship. Siblings fight, and we pick on each other, but woe to anyone who thinks they can treat our brother or sister unfairly.

If we have siblings we know we have a port in any storm, and is the greatest gift we can give our first child, a brother, or a sister?

Siblings are like branches of a tree. We grow in different directions, yet our roots remain as one. Unknown

Your parents leave you too soon and your kids and spouse come along late, but your siblings know you when you are in your most chaotic form. Unknown

Brothers and sisters are special. They fight. They make up. They laugh. They cry. They’re far from perfect. But when you really need them, they have your back. Unknown

Thank you for reading this post, Please come back and read some more, and have a blessed day filled with gratitude, joy, and love.

To subscribe, comment, and see archives or categories of posts click on the picture and scroll to the end.

Thank you for reading my books, and a special thank you to those who leave a review on Goodreads and Amazon. If you click on the Amazon link and purchase an item I receive a small percentage of the sale through the Amazon affiliate program.

Posted on by BWThomas

Gratitude makes our soul blossom, changing our attitude, brightening our outlook, and broadening our perspective.

Painting by Belynda Wilson Thomas

Take one thing with another, and the world is a pretty good sort of a world, and tis our duty to make the best of it and be thankful. Benjamin Franklin

People are gathering in their homes to celebrate Thanksgiving. We give thanks for the bounty and blessings we’ve received. Is it as easy to give thanks as to complain? Isn’t there always something that is not quite right we can complain about, but blessings flow to us daily?

Isn’t it a blessing when we turn on the tap, flush the toilet, open our fridge, and start our vehicle? We pick up our phone, turn on the computer or TV, and are connected to the world. Life has probably never been so simple, we don’t have to lay up stores for the winter like long ago when if we didn’t have enough, death was certain.

We don’t have to spend all our waking hours hunting for food. We have time for pastimes, reading, learning, and discussing world affairs. Do we see a cup half full or a cup half empty? Are we part of the problem or part of the solution? Are we waiting for someone else to do what needs to be done or are we getting in there and making the best of what there is?

We may think we should have made better decisions throughout our life, or just different ones, life might not have turned out how we thought it would, but life isn’t so much planned as meandered through in many ways. If we’ve seen the movie “Up” it was a good analogy of how life works. Something comes along to derail our plans. It doesn’t mean we shouldn’t make plans, but we need flexibility.

When it comes to life the critical thing is whether you take things for granted or take them with gratitude. G.K. Chesterton

As life twists and turns is cultivating an attitude of gratitude the best thing we can do? Does it make a difference if we are grateful for the blessings and challenges of life? It’s easy to be grateful for the blessings, the challenges not so much, but facing challenges is where growth lies, and when we meet people who have faced many challenges we are often impressed with who they’ve become. We wouldn’t want to face those challenges ourselves, but aren’t we impressed, and just like coal under immense pressure becomes a diamond perhaps pressure on people turns them into people who sparkle with life, character, and gratitude.

What if we start life as an old lump of coal but could be a diamond someday? Sweet old people who have faced the challenges in life are a joy to be around. They have wonderful stories, insights into life, and an encouraging way about them. They are givers, encouragers, supporters, and uplift those around them.

Who can we uplift, encourage, and support? Times will get hard, situations seem impossible to overcome, relationships may seem beyond repair and if we give up they will stay that way, but what if we don’t give up, what if we keep dealing with the hardships, we keep trying to make peace, we keep looking for common ground, and we look for a way to make things better?

What if in the end, we come out the other side and things are better, the road behind us is rougher than the road ahead of us. Will we be grateful for persevering and being steadfast? Will we have taught our children and grandchildren the benefit of not giving up? In most stories there is a point where the character thinks they can’t go on, what is the use, defeat is sure, but if they continue, though they pay a heavy price they are rewarded in some way.

We all have a story, and we can’t go back and change the beginning, but what if the ending is in a good part up to us?

Being grateful does not mean that everything is necessarily good. It just means that you can accept it as a gift. Roy T. Bennett

The more you practice the art of thankfulness, the more you have to be thankful for. Norman Vincent Peale

Never let the things you want make you forget the things you have. Sanchita Pandey

Thank you for reading this post. Please come back and read more, and have a blessed day filled with gratitude, joy, and love.

To subscribe, comment, and see archives or categories of posts click on the picture and scroll to the end.

Thank you for reading my books, and a special thank you to those who leave a review on Goodreads and Amazon. If you click on the Amazon link and purchase an item I receive a small percentage of the sale through the Amazon affiliate program.

Posted on by BWThomas

Creating an Illustrated Journal to celebrate our life, document our days, and excavate our soul.

Painting by Belynda Wilson Thomas

Write what disturbs you, what you fear, what you have not been willing to speak about. Be willing to be split open. Natalie Goldberg

Has creating an Illustrated Journal been something you’ve done or would like
to do? I’ve kept journals for many years, mostly written, and I believe they
have helped me in ways too numerous to mention. Most of my journals are written but sometimes we can’t find the words to say what is in our heart and mind.

Long ago I gave up the page-day Diary in favor of the blank page Journal,
but I picked up a few yesterday that inspire me, for 2025 I might try a page-a-day guided journal, and one I like is called “Fit Happens.” It includes gratitude, goals, fitness, and inspiration with a two-page spread for each day. I purchased it at Dollarama.

Our journal is a place, to be honest with ourselves; we can pour our heart
and soul onto a page in words, art, or both. Sometimes it’s hard to find the
words and a picture might let us get all our angst out on the page in a
scribble, maybe we want to color in the blank space, or maybe we don’t. Georgia O’Keefe tells us, “I found I could say things with colour and shapes that I couldn’t say any other way.”

Zentangles are patterns we can add to our illustrated journal.  Lines, circles, and dots create a pattern. Four patterns create a tile, we can incorporate lines and patterns in our journal in any way we choose, and can become a mindful meditative practice. Creating mandalas is another way of expressing ourselves.

Writing is another powerful way to sharpen the mental saw. Keeping a journal of our thoughts, insights, and learning promotes mental clarity, exactness, and context. Stephen Covey

Art is for all of us, and expressing ourselves on the page might be one of
the best ways to sort out our feelings, fears, goals, and aspirations, and help us deal with the problems and challenges in life. Art isn’t only for those whose artwork will end up in a museum or gallery. It doesn’t need to be hung up on our walls, but it can be.

The benefit of art is in making it, expressing ourselves on the page, and when we keep that art in a journal we can look back on it and see our progress. The words and pictures will bring us back to that day. We think we remember everything about our life but I read my journals and am surprised by what is in them. There are events written about in my journal I don’t remember until the journal jogs my memory. We might think we’ve always looked at things the way we see them now, but if kept over a long time, our journal will document how our view on things has changed.

A written journal or an illustrated journal is a way to examine our lives,
we may get more out of life by looking for things to put into our journal, live more fully, and drink more deeply from the cup of life. Does our life call out to be documented in some way? Isn’t this why we love taking photos? They can also be included in our illustrated journal and other memorabilia we can glue or tape in.

My idea of an Illustrated Journal is to excavate the past, document our
present, and plan our future. As a scrapbook, life planner, and vision
board nothing is too small or too big to be included.

Will creating an Illustrated Journal help us to live well from the inside
out? Will it change our lives in ways we can’t imagine? Is it true the more you
put into life the more you get out of it? Would creating an Illustrated Journal
be a way to get more out of life?

In the journal, I do not just express myself more openly than I could to any
person” I create myself. Susan Sontag

Documenting little details of your everyday life becomes a celebration of
who you are. Carolyn V. Hamilton

Fill your paper with the breathings of your heart. William Wordsworth

Thank you for reading this post. Please come back and read more, and have a blessed day filled with gratitude, joy, and love. 

To subscribe, comment, and see archives or categories of posts click on the picture and scroll to the end. 

Thank you for reading my books, and a special thank you to those who leave a review on Goodreads and Amazon. If you click on the Amazon link and purchase an item I receive a small percentage of the sale through the Amazon affiliate program. 

 

Posted on by BWThomas

Taking the long view, time can heal a lot of hurts.

Painting by Belynda Wilson Thomas

Most evil comes from the belief that one is a victim, or one’s group is a victim. Dennis Prager

I watched a YouTube video with a U.S. Marine convicted of something he didn’t do and he said he came out of prison a better man. He learned how to get along in prison, the other prisoners, Warden, and guards believed he was innocent, and he helped other prisoners with their legal problems – with the Warden’s blessing.

Even if we are convicted, there is dignity in innocence, which is evident in real-life stories and movies. When we accept hard things in life and become better, not bitter we might see situations and people in a new light, one we could not have gained any other way.

With all that is going on in the world, there is a lot that has made people bitter and hardened to the other’s story. So much injustice has been done on all sides are we best to see it as a fact of life? Some of us hate to hear that wrong has been done on all sides, and also hate to hear meddling in other country’s politics has created situations we don’t know how to solve.

We can take a smaller view and look at meddling in other people’s relationships – that doesn’t work well either. Is it possible to live in a live and let live world, to agree to disagree? Have we ever lived in that world? Catholics and Protestants fought to the death but now we live side by side. There was a time not too long ago when a Catholic president of the United States was a big thing.

Every man takes the limits of his own field of vision for the limits of the world. Arthur Schopenhauer

Are we expecting groups in parts of the world to live beside others with different ideologies and beliefs that took the West hundreds of years to come to terms with? A thousand years ago The Hundred Years War between England and France was waging, it started in 1337 and ended in 1453, and England and France both survived.

We might be expecting instant results that can only come with time. We in the West have carved out our place and might think we have the right to meddle in disputes that aren’t our business. Jockeying for position in the world is messy and everyone has a view that makes sense to them, and few acknowledge they are in the wrong even if they are, and often meddlers make things worse, not better.

Why can’t we all just get along? We can’t do it in our families, or our communities, why do we think it is so easy to do it in countries? We don’t only want everyone to get along, we want them to get along so we benefit, and this is the real problem. Dwight Eisenhower warned against establishing a “Military-industrial complex” but the warning wasn’t heeded. So here we are and I for one am trying to take the long view that in a thousand years, the Middle East will live in peace.

For a thousand years in your sight, are like yesterday when it is past, or like a watch in the night. Psalm 90:4

A society grows great when old men plant trees whose shade they shall never sit. Greek Proverb

Perspective is the way we see things when we look at them from a certain distance and it allows us to appreciate their true value. Rafael E. Pino

Thank you for reading this post. Please return and read more and have a blessed day filled with gratitude, joy, and love.

To subscribe, comment, and see archives or categories of posts click on the picture and scroll to the end.

Thank you for reading my books, and a special thank you to those who leave a review on Goodreads and Amazon. If you click on the Amazon link and purchase an item I receive a small percentage of the sale through the Amazon affiliate program.