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Northern Lights – Aurora Borealis an experience that might not be what you expect but worth experiencing.

Northern Lights - Aurora Borealis worth experiencing, even if it isn't what you expect.

Painting by Belynda Wilson Thomas

The Northern Lights rise like a kiss to the sea. Arthur Rimaud

This weekend the Northern Lights (Aurora Borealis) might be able to be seen from Southern Canada and the Northern United States. Seeing the Northern Lights is on many people’s bucket list. I can understand why having seen them as a kid. I didn’t realize what a big thing it was to see them. It is an awe-inspiring and spiritual experience as is seeing a double rainbow, or how the sun streams through clouds sometimes. The majesty of nature speaks to us, and pulls at us and makes us feel one with the world.

I don’t know if anyone in Southern Ontario saw the Northern Lights last night. My husband and I went for a walk in the off-chance we might get a glimpse. We didn’t, but we had a nice walk, on a lovely summer’s eve. We saw the Northern Lights once when we were driving to Ottawa. All of a sudden there they were shimmering in the sky. The Northern Lights have never appeared to me like they do in pictures, spectacularly colorful.

I feel blessed that I enjoyed the Northern Lights spectacular show before I saw a photo of the Northern Lights. When I saw it, it was awe-inspiring and I had no expectations, it was an experience to be enjoyed, not measured against some fantastical expectation that couldn’t be met.

Frost is but slender weeks away,

Tonight the sunset glow will stay,

Swing to the North and burn up higher

And Northern Lights wall earth with fire.

Nothing is lost yet, nothing broken:

Say goodbye to the sun.

The days of love and leaves are done.

Robert P.T. Coffin

Astrophotographer Mike Taylor made a graph to show the difference between what our eyes see during the Northern Lights and what a camera shows us afterward.

The discrepancy occurs because specific cells that our eyes use to detect light at night also happen to be terrible at detecting color, according to Dr. Andrea Thau, Vice President of the American Optometric Association. It is for that reason the Aurora Borealis often appear only in shades of gray.

I was wondering why I’ve never seen the spectacular colors even though I’ve been lucky enough to experience the Northern Lights on a few occasions.

Mike Taylor has been taking photos of the Northern Lights in central Maine consistently for two years. He says he often sees them as mostly white, with faint hints of red and pink. Only in the photos do other tones emerge.  It is at the higher altitudes, in Iceland or Norway, they see lots of green. The best time to see the Northern Lights is around an equinox in the Northern Lights Belt regions of the world, Canada, Alaska, Russia, Sweden, Norway, etc.

So here we are with another chance to be disappointed because of our unmet expectations. If we are expecting to see what the camera sees we will be disappointed. So if we get the opportunity to see the Northern Lights, we need to take a picture so we can see, what we didn’t see.

I have never done that, had a camera when I saw the Northern Lights. I walked with my cell phone last night to do just that. There is still time to be thrilled by seeing the Northern Lights this weekend. Someone who isn’t expecting to see the Northern Lights will get a happy thrill, but the pictures they show won’t be what they saw with the naked eye.

After we look at the photo of what we didn’t see, will we begin to believe it is what we saw?

The icy cold will cut us like a knife in the dark, and we may lose everything in the wind, but the Northern Lights are burning, and they’re giving off sparks. Jim Steinman

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Northern Lights: A Practical Travel Guide Paperback – Nov 7 2017

by Polly Evans (Author) 4.4 out of 5 stars 3 customer reviews

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Uncommon joy in common hours. We all have twenty-four hours. Are we making the most of ours?

We all have twenty-four hours. Are we making the most of ours? Uncommon joy in common hours.

Painting by Belynda Wilson Thomas

Use what talents you possess; the woods would be very silent if no birds sang there except those that sang best. Henry Van Dyke

Uncommon joy in common hours, the thought came to me this morning as I walked Lulu (my little dog). I think the idea came from Henry David Thoreau’s quote. “If one advances confidently in the direction of his dreams, and endeavors to live the life which he has imagined he will meet with a success unexpected in common hours.”

Getting up at 5:00 and giving myself time to exercise, reflect in a journal, read and walk my dog before I sit down with a cup of coffee to blog is giving me joy in common hours. This time used to pass by unnoticed. Who has time to walk Lulu? Not me, I said. We don’t have time for anything in our lives unless we make time. We all have twenty-four hours, what some people accomplish in theirs is amazing.

Most of us think that people who do things have something we don’t have, they do something we don’t do, and that is all it takes most of the time. We think we couldn’t possibly do that, but once we do it we wonder what the problem was. We do things incrementally, no one sits down and writes a novel in an hour, it takes days, weeks, months, and in some cases years. It is the same with playing an instrument, art, exercising and getting fit, building a business, or learning anything, doing anything. If we are willing to set a goal or work toward something we never know where it may lead.

Sometimes setting a goal is even too much, it seems too hard but we can practice something daily and it becomes something even if we didn’t have an end goal in mind. We don’t know where life will take us. We don’t know in what circumstances we may find ourselves.

The other day a young disheveled man came up to my husband and me at Tim Horton’s, “Did we have any spare change.” My husband pulled out what he had, which wasn’t much.

I wanted to know but didn’t ask, “What brought you to this? What would get your life turned around and back on track?” I hope he finds his way. I hope he has family or friends that can help him on his journey back to getting on his feet. I hope when someone extends a helping hand, he takes it.

There are many ways of going forward, but only one way of standing still. Franklin Roosevelt

“There but for the grace of God go I,” springs to my mind. We could all find ourselves in a situation we never imagined we could be in. Oprah said, “Women’s worst fear is ending up a bag lady.” I think she’s right. 

People bemoan the fact that money is “too” important, too important for what? It is money that will keep us from being a “bag lady.” Money can give us only the things it can give us; security is one of those things.

I doubt I am the only one that thinks, how would I manage, if? It is something we should all think about, and know that we can get through the worst life can throw at us. Even that disheveled young man we saw is getting through whatever he is going through. Hopefully, he will be stronger for having gone through it. He may learn some lessons he would learn no other way.

We never know what journey someone else is on. Often we don’t even know the journey we are on. If we take one step at a time, do some of the things that scare us and work on progress, not perfection. We too can experience uncommon joy in common hours, and unexpected success in ways that bring meaning and purpose to our lives.

Unmet expectations are the root of many of our problems. Unexpected success, joy, and happiness are what make life worth living. Can we set aside expectations, and instead work toward our goals accepting life will unfold how it will? Can we learn to live with “what is” instead of wishing things aren’t how they are? What if we embraced everything just the way it is, and worked to make things better?

He who has a why to live can bear almost any how. Friedrich Nietzsche

Thank you for reading this post. I hope you enjoyed it. I hope you will come back and read some more. Have a blessed day filled with gratitude, joy, and love.

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Walking: All Good Things Are Wild And Free. Paperback – Mar 19 2014

by Henry David Thoreau (Author) Be the first to review this item

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Keep our good habits. When things go wrong, and they will, don’t blame someone’s intentions.

When things go wrong, and they will don't blame someone's intentions.

Painting by Belynda Wilson Thomas

Judging a person does not define who they are. It defines who you are. Unknown

Don’t give up your good habits is one of the things I’ve always told my kids. If we keep our good habits and change our not so good habits and develop some new good habits along the way we build a great life.

Yet, I know this is easier said than done. When we don’t sleep well it is easy to turn off the alarm and roll over like I did this morning. We also have to not be so rigid in our lives that we have no room for real life.

Sometimes we sit down in a chair with our gym clothes on and we have a conversation that is more important than getting to the gym. We all know if we want to connect with people we need to do it when they are willing to connect. Conversations don’t often go well when the first words are, “We need to talk.” I hear these are words people most hate to hear.

One of the biggest problems we have, when we are trying to communicate is having people hear and understand what we think we said. Too often what we said, what was heard, and what was meant, is not the same thing. Processing language takes a degree of thought. We use our working memory to hold each word and its meaning in our mind long enough to combine it with other words to make our sentences. If the meaning of any of the words we use are unclear, understanding what we’ve said becomes harder.

We often don’t express ourselves as clearly as we think we do. We sometimes forget to include important background or context, and this can dramatically shape the meaning of what is being said, and what is being heard. We sometimes mumble words or choose a wrong word, or appear to make some words more important. Often the speaker needs more information from us than we are giving them to understand the message we are trying to deliver.

We used to play a game called telephone which illustrated this. Something would be whispered from one person to the next, and often the last person didn’t get at all what the first person said. Who in the chain didn’t hear what was said? It might have been the first person.

We should be more understanding when people don’t hear what we think we said. We can have people repeat what they think we said to make sure they understood. We can repeat what they said to us so they know we understood. We may need to repeat ourselves, and it is best to do this without getting annoyed. Can we be clear and concise? We need to seek to understand as well as be understood. Things don’t mean the same things to different people. There is a reason we have, “He said, she said,” as a relationship problem.

Stop judging others change yourself. Ujjwal Choudhary

Yesterday I was listening to some men talk about women in not flattering terms. One of the men was explaining that when women hear negative things said about women we internalize it to mean it is a negative comment about us. This might not just be a female trait but I’ll accept I do that. If you don’t mean all women then don’t say “Women do ….” Say, “Some women do…” and I won’t take offense.

The men were talking about women’s outrageous standards for finding a husband. They were saying men can have standards too. Don’t men have standards about who they date? Don’t they do the asking for a date usually, and no one tells them who they must ask out on a date. If I were to speak to mothers and fathers of marriage-age women I wonder if they would say they think their daughter’s standards are too high.

Women can get picky about height, which is a problem, men who aren’t tall have. Women can get picky about a man’s lack of ambition, one they should be picky about in my opinion. I’ve heard about women who wouldn’t go out with someone because of the kind of shoes he had on, I think there was likely another reason they didn’t want to mention.

If there is one area that men and women can be as discriminating as they like it is about whom they will spend their life with. Of course, if they are too discriminating no one they like may like them back and they end up alone by their own choice. If our standards are so picky that the only person who would meet those criteria is unlikely to be in our circle, we have the right to stay single. So I need to understand how is it that men can say “We have a right to expect a certain standard from women.”

What I think they mean is they think they should be able to find a woman they like the look of and have her be the woman they want in all other ways. Good luck with that. None of us get that. They want the kind of character that comes with women they aren’t attracted to or would be the kind of women that would not look at them because they aren’t what she wants. They want build-a-women, a little from this one, a little from that one, a tweak here a tweak there, and she should have no standards or expectations about them.

Do they want control in a way no one gets? If we want the best in our mate, we need to bring that out. We can force people to do a lot of things. We cannot force them to like us, love us, or respect us. Women have over time submitted to their husbands, because of duty, circumstances, the lesser of two evils, or whatever the reason was they made that choice.

It seems to me some of the men so bitter on the internet about women have chosen their partners for the wrong reasons, had expectations that could not be met, or were not the kind of husband that would lead to a long and happy union.

If we don’t have the life we want, the relationships we want, the health we want, the physical fitness, or the communication we want, we need to take a good look at our part in all of it. If there are any changes that can be made they need to be made by us. Pointing our finger at someone else and waiting for them to change will not give us what we want.

As Wayne Dyer says, “When we change the way we look at things, the things we look at change.”

Unmet expectations are one of the biggest problems in relationships. Where did these expectations come from? One of the things I heard Tony Robbins and his wife saying last night is to never look at your partner as having bad intentions. They make mistakes, they hurt us, they usually didn’t mean it, and when we start to attribute blame to someone’s intentions is when we have a bigger problem.

When we blame someone’s intentions we create a no-win situation. How can anyone prove what their intentions were?

A diamond with a flaw is better than a common stone that is perfect. Chinese proverb

If you judge people, you have no time to love them. Mother Teresa

The moment you take responsibility for everything in your life is the moment you can change anything in your life. Hal Elrod

Thank you for reading this post. I hope you enjoyed it. I hope you will come back and read some more. Have a blessed day filled with gratitude, joy, and love.

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The Power of Intention Paperback – Dec 15 2005

by Dr. Wayne W. Dyer (Author) 4.6 out of 5 stars 56 customer reviews

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Why are we so obsessed with growth? Is bigger always better?

Is bigger always better? Why are we so obsessed with growth?

Painting by Belynda Wilson Thomas

Embrace the pace of your own journey. Unknown

We have an obsession with growth. Can we really handle all this growth? I wonder if the development of what we have instead of more growth isn’t what we really need.

As a member of an organization that prizes growth, it seems to me that many people feel not appreciated if they are already a long-time member. New people and new ways of doing things are prized ahead of those who have been loyal members for years.

One of my duties in this organization is to open new clubs. I mentioned to my District Director I don’t think we need new clubs in my area. We need to strengthen and develop our existing clubs. We need to make our current members see the value in continuing as an old development system is gotten rid of and the new system which benefits new members over long -term members is fully implemented. Achievements in the old system will no longer be recognized in the new system.

We have a fear that if our business isn’t growing it is failing. Many long-surviving businesses did not grow beyond a few people. Sometimes husbands and wives created a business that sustained them throughout their lives. Are we really trying to say they were failures because they didn’t grow? I had a boss like that once. He bought a franchise and said he didn’t understand not being focused on growth. His business and that franchise are long closed. Little businesses that haven’t grown are still thriving. It isn’t that growth is bad, but what is the cost of that growth?

Growth has a cost. Our rate of consumption on the planet is not sustainable because we have outgrown our resources. We are going to have to come to grips with that reality and probably pretty soon. I always give my farm analogy to my husband. If a piece of land can sustain 50 cows every year, it can sustain 100 cows for less time, and a thousand cows for even less time. Where are we in our quest for sustainability?

Growth is not always the best decision. Taken from the Entrepreneur Blog which says focus on the next customer and the next level will take care of itself.  

If we are to survive in a business or even in a social club, church, etc. we need to build resilience. Being resilient means we need to focus and work towards developing three traits:

We need to have a great sense of purpose for why we’re doing what we’re doing, even if things go wrong or aren’t currently working out.

We need to recognize that we cannot control everything, and we have to recognize and accept reality for what it is – something we can steer but not fully command at all times.

We need to develop an ability to adapt as things change, so we can pivot with differences in the market, in customer requests, needs, and shifts in technology.

Being resilient is harder for large organizations than for small ones. Small organizations have fewer resources, less moving parts, and fewer decision-makers, and can, therefore, be nimble enough to move with the changes that could negatively affect a small company or organization.

Never put the key to your happiness in somebody else’s pocket. Unknown

Companies of one or two people are becoming popular because people want more control and autonomy in their lives. People are feeling lost in large organizations. As they look for more meaning and purpose in their lives they sometimes start their own business and keeping it small gives them the most autonomy and control.

What if we look at how we can make our businesses, organizations, clubs, and groups better, not just bigger?

Economic growth without investment in human development is unsustainable – and unethical. Amartya Sen

Thank you for reading this post. I hope you enjoyed it. I hope you will come back and read some more. Have a blessed day filled with gratitude and love.

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Falter: Has the Human Game Begun to Play Itself Out? Hardcover – Apr 16 2019

by Bill McKibben (Author) 5.0 out of 5 stars 3 customer reviews

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Lessons from a skunk. Getting out of my comfort zone. Fortune favors the brave. When opportunities come along we need to grab them.

When opportunities come along we need to grab them. Fortune favors the brave. Getting out of my comfort zone. Lessons from a skunk.

Painting by Belynda Wilson Thomas

In the end, what we regret most are the chances we never took. Frasier Krane       

This morning as I step out my door for my early morning walk it is raining ever so lightly. Should we walk or go back inside? I take Lulu to the boulevard and let her do her thing. The rain is light enough, we won’t even be wet if it doesn’t rain harder. We walk and we are the only hardy souls we see until we get home and a humble soul is on my doorstep, a skunk. We beat a fast retreat and have hardly turned around when my husband comes out of the house to leave for an early morning appointment.

“Did you see the skunk?” I ask.

As I sit down to write I look up Universe of Symbolism and for skunk symbolism it says; if a skunk has come to us in some way today it means that symbolically we need to implement these aspects of a skunk; protection, independence, and self-respect. A skunk creates a line or boundary that no one can cross without a penalty. The spirit of the skunk is gentle but has absolutely effective defense.

The skunk’s power is in a gentle defense that is full of confidence and assertiveness. If the skunk is speaking to us, it is saying to take control, but in a calm, and confident way. It is saying to be assertive about our own power, and our ability to project our protective nature, like the skunk projects its defensive scent.

Skunk symbolism is predominantly the power to see everything in black and white, with perfect clarity. In the ability to do so, it defends those boundaries humbly, yet confidently. The skunk is a creature of humble power, not to be offended, or one will be put to shame in a uniquely unpleasant way.

This is the second recent meeting with a skunk. The first time the skunk was walking up to someone else’s door.

Opportunities are like sunrises. If you wait too long, you will miss them. William Aurthur Ward

Today I am getting out of my comfort zone. Toastmaster’s is doing online executive training and I am hosting one of the sessions. This is a new experience for me, an experienced trainer is conducting the training session, I am only hosting. When I press start at 11:45 hopefully all will unfold as it should.

We get pulled kicking and screaming into the present. After we do things we didn’t think we could do, we don’t see what the big deal was. We were getting out of our comfort zone; we didn’t want to look like we didn’t know what we were doing. What’s the worst that can happen? It doesn’t work and no one gets trained today. Nothing ventured, nothing gained. The other thing is I don’t like how I look on the webcam. Time to get over myself.

I’m feeling a little excited at trying something new. I’ve set up a free account with Webex which is good for a month. Today is a learning experience and I’ll have to thank my District Director for pushing me to grow when I speak to her tonight. We get calls to action and we either take the challenge or often regret the missed opportunity.

When opportunity knocks will we answer, or pretend we didn’t hear the knock? Is it true that opportunity dances with those already on the dance floor? Do we need to get on the dance floor of life?

Can we be humble, yet confident and assertive? Can we be independent and have self-respect, yet be gentle and kind with firm boundaries? Can we implement the lessons from a skunk into our lives?

Opportunity favors the bold. Unknown

Nothing is more expensive than a missed opportunity. Unknown

Thank you for reading this post. I hope you enjoyed it. I hope you will come back and read some more. Have a blessed day filled with gratitude, joy, and love.

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Animal Speak: The Spiritual & Magical Powers of Creatures Great and Small Paperback – Sep 8 2002

by Ted Andrews (Author) 4.8 out of 5 stars 93 customer reviews

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What is more important, what we eat, or what we don’t eat to be healthy? In search of a healthy diet.

In search of a healthy diet. What is more important, what we eat, or what we don't eat to be healthy?

Painting by Belynda Wilson Thomas

Most of us are getting ready for the winter that never comes. Dr. Steven R. Gundry

My first pot of bone broth is on the stove. I’ve boiled bones for soup before but I never went out and bought bones just for soup. Everything old is new again. Knowing what is true about diet and healthy living is confusing on all sides as we are told to eat various ways to be optimally healthy.

Bone broth is supposed to be good for our bone health and also some are saying good for our digestive health. It may be good for individuals with leaky gut, irritable bowel, Crohn’s disease, and some people are saying it helps with their oral health and might help prevent tooth loss. Weston A. Price advocated bone broth for dental health.

Finding soup bones at regular grocery stores isn’t that easy but I have a supermarket called Nations near me. They have lots of bones, marrow bones, cow’s tendon, pig snout, pig’s feet, chicken feet, neck bones, chicken carcasses with the meat taken off. I opted for beef neck bones.

Roast the bones first the directions stated, and then I placed everything in my stockpot. I was going to buy a new stockpot yesterday because the metal is breaking. Then I thought of the people who get all the latest and greatest gadgets before they do something instead of just doing something. I opted to buy the bones and make a batch of bone broth instead of hunting for the perfect stockpot. Some say you should boil the bones up to twenty-four hours. This means I had to take my stock off the stove, put it in containers, find a spot in the fridge and put it back on this morning to simmer for the day.

I went down to my studio to do some art on Saturday evening but instead of painting, I read Dr. Gundry’s Diet Evolution. He has a new book out I looked at yesterday The Longevity Paradox How to Die Young at a Ripe Old Age. One of the things he recommends is fasting.

All disease begins in the gut. Hippocrates

I fasted one day a week years ago, it may be time to bring this back. Intermittent fasting I’ve embraced and find it works for me. Fourteen to sixteen hours between dinner and breakfast most days. I do drink black coffee in the morning, and it isn’t supposed to interfere with the fast. Some people say we can have bone broth during a fast.

Religious people who fast are said to be healthier than those who do not. Generally, that would be thought to be the main difference in their eating habits, lifestyle, etc.

I looked for bone broth in Dr. Gundry’s books and didn’t find it but he does have a podcast The Dr. Gundry Podcast (episode 27) and he does agree it is scientifically proven to be good for our gut health, but he cautions too much of a good thing is not a good thing. This is one of the big messages in his books. Meat is bad because it is good for us, and vegetables are good for us because they are bad for us. He has a recipe for bone broth in The Plant Paradox cookbook.

He thinks the best thing we can do for our health is to keep our insulin levels low. He finds that the patients who have gone on a bone broth diet, how much bone broth they are using isn’t mentioned, their insulin levels have gone up. What will this mean over time, he isn’t sure, but he thinks it won’t be good. That said, he makes bone broth but doesn’t consume it every day. He believes it may be good as a short term fix but not necessarily to consume every day over our lifetime.

Moderation in everything is probably in order. Is there a perfect diet, or is there always a tweak or two we can make to improve our health? Here again, we may have to settle for the “good enough” not “perfect” diet. Can we do the best we can, with what we have?

You are what the thing you are eating ate. Dr. Steven R. Gundry

Thank you for reading this post. I hope you enjoyed it. I hope you will come back and read some more. Have a blessed day filled with gratitude, joy, and love.

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The Longevity Paradox: How to Die Young at a Ripe Old Age Hardcover – Mar 19 2019

by Dr. Steven R Gundry MD (Author) 4.8 out of 5 stars 10 customer reviews

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Progress, not perfection. Change our mind and we change our life. We are the change we need to see in our lives.

We are the change we need to see in our lives. Progress not Perfection. Change our mind and we change our lives.

Painting by Belynda Wilson Thomas

Progress is impossible without change, and those who cannot change their minds cannot change anything. George Bernard Shaw

Yesterday a little serendipity played in our life. My sister was flying home and her flights got changed, and she ended up with a layover where we live. We picked her and her family up, went for breakfast, had a good visit, barbequed and took them back to the airport to continue home. They must have been tired by the time they arrived at their destination. They were up from 2:30 am and should have arrived home at 10:30 pm.

Today is my daughter’s one year anniversary. This year has flown by. We have some decisions to make. The wedding dress still hangs in the spare room. A treadmill that was picked up cheap but had to be dismantled to get out of its former home was not as easy to put together as we thought it would be. Yesterday someone came by who knew what they were doing and assembled it and the sound of the treadmill whirring was music to our ears.

My daughter came into the house and asked if she could lend or give a child gate to their friends who had the honeymoon baby from their wedding. I didn’t realize it was in the pile my husband is planning to take to the dump. “I’m not sorting anything, everything is going to the dump,” he says. We’ve been warned.

Clutter has a life of its own and once one piece is allowed to accumulate the pile grows and grows. I’m reading a book and the author tells me. “I can tell the state of your finances by the state of your home.” According to him, if we aren’t neat and tidy in other areas, we won’t be neat and tidy in our finances either.  I remember listening to an author talk about how she didn’t even have a junk drawer in her house.

Taming clutter is an ongoing challenge. I just took three bags of clothes to Value Village not long ago. My closet doesn’t look empty, how could I pull three bags of clothes out and still have anything to wear? I read about capsule wardrobes, I’ve even built them along with my other clothes, but limiting myself to a summer wardrobe of 29 pieces, or 40 pieces seems unthinkable. What would I wear? When I counted I had more than that in tops. I have at times turned all my hangers one way and as I wear things I turn the hanger the other way. It is a good way to see what actually gets worn. The guest room closet might house my spring/summer clothes as I see what I have for fall/winter.

Resistance is never the agent of change. You have to embrace the actions that are going to get you closer to your goal. Ali Vincent

I’m a long way from wanting a financial guru to walk through my house and tell me the state of my finances by the state of my housekeeping. I have an aunt who doesn’t have an overstuffed closet. I see them on TV but that isn’t real life, I see them at open houses but that isn’t real life either. Could I get my house on a daily basis to be ready for scrutiny at any time? Now that is a challenge?

What if everything in our life is a reflection of other things in our life? Our state of mind is reflected by our surroundings, our relationships, our actions. When we change one thing we change other things. What if we have more control than we think we have? What if taking care of the small things is taking care of the big things? What if Mother Teresa is right that if we all swept our own doorstep the whole world would be clean? What if when we take care of the pennies the dollars take care of themselves?

What if it is our choice and we can be orderly and prompt or chaotic and messy and we choose which it is by our habits, actions, and behavior? We can’t have two objects occupy the same space in our house or garden. If we let the weeds grow in our garden or lawn then the flowers and grass get choked out. Our mind is the same we can’t have a negative thought and a positive thought occupy the same space. Sometimes we have negative thoughts but if we at least acknowledge them we can deal with them. We need to acknowledge our worries, fears, insecurities, and challenges. Really take a good look at what we are worried about. Just like we need to look in our closet and question why we are keeping that old red sweater we loved, but it has had its day.

Some of our old thoughts have had their day too. We don’t know where they all came from but we carry them around with us. We can change our thoughts, we can change our life, and we can remove the clutter from our closet. We may hardly notice at first, but every small change for the good is moving in the right direction. We can do it with our exercise and food habits. We can make progress, and if progress, not perfection is our aim we can make progress our whole lives.

We need to find a home for a wedding dress that served its purpose but should no longer be hanging on the door in the spare room. What are the small changes we can make that will serve our lives in a big way?

The first step toward change is awareness. The second step is acceptance. Nathaniel Branden

Yesterday I was clever, so I wanted to change the world. Today I am wise, so I am changing myself. Rumi

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What Your Clutter Is Trying to Tell You: Uncover the Message in the Mess and Reclaim Your Life by [Richardson, Kerri L.]
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Is there a downside to gratitude? Or does gratitude change everything, but it isn’t as easy for everyone to be grateful as we think?

Does gratitude change everything, but it isn't as easy for everyone to be grateful as we think? Is there a downside to gratitude?

Painting by Belynda Wilson Thomas

Learn to be grateful for what you already have, while you pursue all that you want. Jim Rohn

I am reading that some people are questioning gratitude as a positive thing. Really, what could be the downside of being grateful? Some people make it sound if we are grateful for the circumstances in our life that aren’t so great, we won’t change them. Can’t we be grateful we have a job and a roof over our head even if we want a better job, and a better roof? Being grateful will not get us a better job, or a better roof, but nor will hating our job or our roof.

Perhaps people who don’t like the concept of gratitude are forgetting that they still have to build their lives and make the changes that need to be made. Gratitude or affirmations won’t change our lives if we don’t change them. We can chant “I am rich, healthy, and thin,” all the days of our lives, it won’t make any of them true unless they are already true, or we make them become true.

If we want things to change in our lives, we need to know the why, how, when, and what we need to do to make it happen. Can’t we feel grateful for what we have, the abundance that we do have, our health, friends, family, security, and a place to lay our head at night? When we are grateful it doesn’t mean we don’t want things to change in our life. We can be grateful when we are single, and still, want to find that special person. We can be grateful when we are childless, and still, welcome a new person into the world.

Gratitude makes sense of our past, brings peace for today, and creates a vision for tomorrow. Melody Beattie

Can we be grateful we have seeds to sow and be grateful when we have a crop to reap? Even when our relationships aren’t great can’t we be grateful because we have the opportunity to make them better? Can’t we be grateful for what we got out of a relationship even if we know we must move on? Even when we decide we no longer want to live there can’t we be grateful for where we lived?

I’m trying to see the downside of gratitude. I’m wondering if some people are pretending to be grateful, they write their gratitude list as penance not feeling grateful at all. They think they should feel grateful, but they don’t feel grateful so they feel worse because they don’t know why they aren’t grateful. Even in their unhappiness, they have more than many. That isn’t gratitude that is guilt over not being grateful.

In Noah St. John’s book Afformations he says affirmations don’t work because we are saying things we don’t believe. We tell ourselves we are rich when we aren’t rich and happy when we aren’t happy, and perhaps grateful when we aren’t grateful. What if we asked questions instead? Why aren’t we rich? Why aren’t we happy? Why aren’t we grateful? What do we have to do to be rich, are we willing to do it? What would we need to do, be, or have to be happy, are we willing to do it? What would we need to do, be, or have, to be grateful, are we willing to do it?

All of us should be able to find something to be genuinely grateful for. If we are breathing we can be grateful. If we have something to eat today, we have something to be grateful for. If we woke up this morning we can be grateful. Maybe some of the people struggling with gratitude feel they need to be grateful for what they are not grateful for. Who says we need to be grateful for everything in our life, but does that mean we should be grateful for nothing?

Gratitude is not a passive response to something we have been given, gratitude arises from paying attention, from being awake in the presence of everything that lives within and without us. David Whyte

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Afformations®: The Miracle of Positive Self-Talk Paperback – Nov 19 2014

by Noah St. John (Author), John Assaraf (Foreword) 4.7 out of 5 stars 12 customer reviews

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Gratitude and happiness, seeing the best in others. Accepting and loving ourselves and others.

Accepting and loving ourselves and others. Gratitude and happiness, see the best in others.

Painting by Belynda Wilson Thomas

It’s not happiness that brings us gratitude. It’s gratitude that brings us happiness. Unknown

Once the element of competition is gone, pride is gone according to C.S. Lewis. Much of our unhappiness is created by trying to compete with other people instead of creating a life we love.

One of the things about pride is we think we are right in our pride. I am looking at a blog saying some men have trouble finding a wife because they think no woman is good enough for them, the women they marry is the lucky one. I think we women suffer from the same pride.

Instead of believing we are lucky to have found such a good man, we believe he is lucky to have found us. It is our pride that makes us bitter. Is it humility that will help us to make things better? When we have pride we think we have done all we can, what more could we possibly do? I’m guilty of this.

In the post I’m reading Meskerem T. Kifetew is saying finding a wife, not a woman, requires humility. Finding a husband, not a man is the same. We look at the good in us and the faults in our spouse. What if we looked at the good in our spouse and we worked on the faults in our self? We are the only people we can change and when we feel accepted we are more likely to be willing to change and grow.

I’ve always said we take a prince and turn him into a frog, and then we wonder where all the sizzle in our relationship went. Men I think do the same thing, and wonder where that lovely young woman went? We are not at our best when we don’t feel appreciated, or when we are not appreciating our spouse.

Everyone in our lives blooms with appreciation and love; everyone withers under judgment, blame, and contempt. Are we capable of loving others how they are instead of seeing what they aren’t? With love, they may become more, with blame, contempt, and judgment they feel too insecure to try.

The happiest people don’t have the best of everything; they make the best of everything. Unknown

If our lives are like a garden is being in our company like having fertile soil, rain, and sunshine, or do we live in a desert? Are we expecting our spouse and children to bloom in a desert?

The only person that can create change in our lives is our self. I was listening to a divorce lawyer on the radio yesterday. She was being asked about older couples getting divorced and how they often don’t realize the financial ramifications, and some of them wish they hadn’t gone for the divorce. They had built separate lives and were co-existing and wished they’d left it at that.  

We all have insecurities, and trying to hide them makes them worse. We need to admit our insecurities because then we can deal with them. When we look at our life and say what is the worst that can happen, really look at it, we can then say, I can deal with that. Once we declare and believe we can deal with what happens we don’t need to feel insecure anymore.

One of the problems we have with pride is we don’t want to deal with our insecurities. What if we built our husband up and then he felt so good about himself he didn’t want us? This may be why we turn our prince into a frog. The problem is we have to live with the frog, and we’ve made ourselves small and insignificant too, and he too has his insecurities so he tells us we aren’t that great either, and downwards we spiral together.

If we can be grateful for what we have, who we are, the people we have in our life, the blessings we do have, the comfort we do have, the health we do have, and the financial situation we do have. If we don’t think it could be worse, it so could be.

Can we go forward accepting our insecurities, feeling grateful, loving, and full of joy for the abundance in our lives? Can we appreciate the people in our lives, and help them bloom, reach their full potential, feel encouraged, loved, and appreciated? Can kind words come out of our mouth? Can we quit comparing ourselves and others, and appreciate who we are, our gifts, our talents, our blessings? Can we learn to live in love, with humility, dignity, and accept ourselves and others how we are?

Home should be an anchor, a port in a storm, a refuge, a happy place in which to dwell, a place where we are loved and where we can love. Marvin J. Ashton

Thank you for reading this post. I hope you enjoyed it. I hope you will come back and read some more. Have a blessed day filled with gratitude, joy, and love.

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For the Love: Fighting for Grace in a World of Impossible Standards by [Hatmaker, Jen]
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What’s the matter with being proud? Exchanging pride for dignity. Embracing humility.

Embracing humility. What's the matter with pride? Exchanging pride for dignity.

Painting by Belynda Wilson Thomas

Do nothing out of selfish ambition or vain conceit, but in humility consider others better than yourselves. Philippians 2:3

What does it mean to be humble? Humility is often given a bad rap, it is associated with being too passive, submissive, or insecure. Instead, humble people are confident, competent but not boastful; they let their actions speak for themselves. To be humble is not to think less of oneself, but to think of oneself less.

  • According to Forbes, there are thirteen habits of humble people:
  • They aim their focus outward, as they try to learn more about the situation.
  • They retain relationships. Studies show humble people are more likely to help friends than their prideful counterparts. Studies of companies reveal that those with humble people in leadership positions had a more engaged workforce and less employee turnover.
  • They make difficult decisions with ease. Since humble people put other’s needs before their own. They make decisions based on shared purpose rather than self-interest.
  • Put others first. Humble people know their self-worth. As a result, they don’t need to cast themselves before others. Humble people share credit and wealth.
  • They listen. Humble people actively listen. They don’t try to dominate the conversation or talk over other people. They are eager to understand because they are curious.
  • They are curious. Humble people seek knowledge; they are perpetual learners and realize they don’t have all the answers.
  • They speak their minds. They say what needs to be said, they are not afraid of being wrong.
  • The say thank you
  • They have an abundance mentality. They don’t believe that for one person to win another must lose. They know there is plenty of opportunities to go around and finding it just necessitates collaboration, communication, and hard work.
  • They start sentences with “You” rather than “I”. Humble people put others at the forefront. Humble people brag about others, while the prideful people brag about themselves.
  • They accept feedback. Humble people are receptive to feedback and actively seek it as a pathway to improvement.
  • They assume responsibility
  • They ask for help

Where are we on that list? Life is about becoming, not necessarily about who we already are. If we become proud of how humble we are, guess what now we are back to being prideful.

Pride is “A feeling that you respect yourself and deserve to be respected by others.” Don’t we want that? But then there is “A feeling that you are more important or better than other people.” This is what we don’t want.

Proud people breed sad sorrows for themselves. Emily Bronte

God opposes the proud but gives grace to the humble. James 4:6

We might believe there is nothing wrong with feeling satisfaction for our accomplishments. Buddhist psychology says suffering is generated when we cling too tightly to things that will inevitably pass. If we focus on always achieving bigger and better things we become addicted to external levels of gratification. Can we exchange pride for dignity?  Dignity is not dependant on success or failure, circumstances, or what others think of us. When we have dignity we don’t have to prove anything to anyone, not even ourselves. We can experience dignity when we live with integrity, regardless of the outcome.

They tell us pride is shame driven. It is considered one of the seven deadly sins. We have all met people who were arrogant and had an over-inflated view of themselves. They repel rather than attract us. Pride is driven by poor self-worth and shame. Why would we need to feel superior unless we felt so badly about our self? We look for flaws in others as a way to conceal our own. We use criticizing others as a defense against recognizing our own shortcomings.

Pride prevents us from acknowledging our human vulnerabilities. Pride often makes us too uncomfortable to apologize, ask for forgiveness, or acknowledge our own wrongdoing. If we have dignity we realize we don’t have to be perfect, we can show humility and vulnerability by asking for forgiveness, acknowledging our imperfections, and taking responsibility for our actions. We can acknowledge our strengths and our weaknesses, and not feel diminished because we are not perfect. W can hold ourselves up with the dignity of simply being human. We don’t need anything else to be of worth and value. We might be inclined to pursue excellence because it feels meaningful, but it does not define us as a person.

When we substitute pride for human dignity we disconnect from others. When we affirm our dignity and allow others their dignity we can honor ourselves and connect with others as equals. We don’t need to carry the burden of pride. Can we choose dignity for ourselves, and recognize and acknowledge the dignity in others? Can we exchange pride for dignity?

Pride gets no pleasure out of having something, only out of having more of it than the next man… It is the comparison that makes you proud: the pleasure of being above the rest. Once the element of competition is gone, pride is gone. C.S. Lewis

Thank you for reading this post. I hope you enjoyed it. I hope you will come back and read some more. Have a blessed day filled with gratitude, joy, dignity, and love.

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Leading with Dignity: How to Create a Culture That Brings Out the Best in People by [Hicks, Donna]
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