Posted on by BWThomas

Covidiots. Don’t be one. Can we find the funny and share the funny in a phone call, virtual meeting, or social media?

Can we find the funny and share the funny in a phone call, virtual meeting, or social media? Covidiots. Don't be one.

Painting by Belynda Wilson Thomas

Any man can make mistakes, but only an idiot persists in his error. Marcus Tullius Cicero

Today is a good day to find something to laugh about. Last night at our virtual Toastmaster meeting we had some laughs. One of our speakers spoke about covidiots those who don’t do what needs to be done, who horde toilet paper, and buy up all the meat when others need those supplies.

Covidiots are people who have come in from another country and don’t self isolate themselves or they are driving through in Winnebagos and may need supplies but they shouldn’t be the ones going into the stores to buy them. The stores are offering to get them their supplies and bring them to their vehicle.

I wish I had thought of the word but I’ll pass it on to those who haven’t heard it. Now we can say, “don’t be a covidiot” to people who don’t consider their own or someone else’s safety.

We may have to say to ourselves “that was a covidiot thing to do.” Hopefully when we realize we’ve done a covidiot thing we won’t do it again. We will not be perfect and nor will other people but we don’t need to be too covidiotic.

Another speaker adopted a rescue dog and she’s a foster-failure. This is when the plan is to foster a pet but you fall in love with and end up keeping it. She is thankful for her dog at this time as are any of us fortunate to have a pet to cuddle and talk to. We can say things to our pets we don’t say to other people and they don’t look at us like we’re crazy.

Give me a smart idiot over a stupid genius any day. Samuel Goldwyn

They look at us as if an irrational fear is the most sensible thing we’ve ever voiced.  They love us unconditionally. There are even speculations that dogs trained to detect cancer may be able to detect coronavirus.

My dog has a funny habit of sniffing our breath as if she is doing a health check. I’ve noticed this for a long time. I’ve thought she would make a good dog for someone that has health problems. We don’t know how to train her to develop this. We can’t even manage to train her to not bark when someone comes into the house.  She has seizures and when she had the last one she was in a place she never lays. She loves to lie on the stair, but she was lying in the little protected area where the stair curves.

It was as if she knew a seizure was coming and put herself in as safe of a place as she could. We don’t know what animals know or understand. It is probably more than we think.

If we have an animal in our life at this time it is another thing to be grateful for. Sometimes we have to face our fears and remain strong but we have to accept that we aren’t strong every moment of every day.

Mom told me a story about a lady she knew whose husband wanted to ride through the mountains on motorcycles. She was terrified but a good sport. At every rest stop, she had a good cry and then got on her motorcycle and carried on. She lived through it, faced her fears, and was probably stronger because of it.

We may have to put on a more brave face than we feel. We’ll get through this and if we can find the funny in situations, share laughter with others over the phone, through virtual meetings, and social media it’ll be easier.

Do we have something funny we can share with someone? Have we had a good laugh lately? Do we know someone who’s a covidiot?

If I decide to be an idiot, then I’ll be an idiot of my own accord. Johann Sebastian Bach

It’s daunting doing something you haven’t done before – you feel silly; you feel like a bit of an idiot. Stacey Dooley

Have you ever noticed? Anybody going slower than you is an idiot, and anyone going faster than you is a maniac. Ronnie Corbett

Thank you for reading his 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.

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

If you purchase an item through the Amazon link I receive a small percentage of the sale through the Amazon affiliate program.

See all 2 images

Laughter Still Is the Best Medicine: Our Most Hilarious Jokes, Gags, and Cartoons Paperback – Jan 2 2014

by Editors of Reader’s Digest (Author) 4.3 out of 5 stars 66 ratings


Posted on by BWThomas

Living with a grateful heart. Can we find the beauty and hidden gifts in life?

Can we find the beauty and hidden gifts in life? Living with a grateful heart.

Painting by Belynda Wilson Thomas

Gratitude is a powerful catalyst for happiness. It’s the spark that lights a fire of joy in our soul. Amy Collette

Today like every day is a day to be grateful. No matter what is happening, it could be worse. We may look back at these times as the happy golden times before… We always need to be careful not to think the worst, but we also need to do what we can to make things the best.

Today is a good day to start if we haven’t been writing down or taking notice of what we have to be grateful for.  Are some people naturally more grateful and happy than others? It seems some people have a natural set point of gratitude and happiness. Do they view life differently than the rest of us? Is this something we can develop?

How do we become one of those people? How do we become a half-full cup kind of person instead of a half-empty type?

Thankful and grateful people focus on what they have, not on what they don’t have.

Thankful and grateful people admit they have more than they deserve.

Thankful and grateful people know thankfulness and gratitude is something we develop.

Thankful and grateful people gauge blessings by things other than money.

There are many things to be thankful for. We can count our blessings. We can name them one by one.

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

Wendy Schmitz teaches a class on gratitude. When asked why a class on gratitude is needed? She replied, “Because we are living longer lives than any other group in history and how we live our lives affects our health, emotional well-being and the lives of those around us.”

The psychological research tells us the first step to becoming happier and more grateful is to make a decision to be happier and grateful. That sounds easy.

She shares four steps in her class to develop a happy and grateful mindset.

Journal daily. Focus on gratitude and note the little things that make our lives easier in our journaling. I journal but often my journal might look more like a complaint journal than a gratitude journal. It is a practice I value and it helps me to figure out what is going on in my life. How hard would it be to write down three things I am grateful for?

She recommends we write down three things we are grateful for twice a week or more.

Write a thank you letter to important people in our lives. We can’t just make a phone call? A letter can be read and reread, so it is the better thank you. We might give someone a pick-me-up by rereading our letter when they are looking for something to be grateful and happy for.

Watch videos that share the joy of gratitude.

In the book, You Can’t Afford the Luxury of a Negative Thought author Peter McWilliams tells us to find the funny in life. Watch funny movies, read funny books, and look on the bright side.

Jose Luis Caceres, an industrial engineer based in Madrid found himself struggling with a declining business. He began sending himself emails at the close of the day. “I would send myself an email every night with the things from that day that I should be thankful for, and I would read it the next day. Sometime later, I realized that it’s a very powerful form of psychological therapy. “

Are we living with a grateful heart? Are there practices we can put in place to be more grateful? Can we find the beauty and hidden gifts in life?

Gratitude, like faith, is a muscle. The more you use it, the stronger it grows, and the more power you have to use it on your behalf. If you do not practice gratefulness, its benefaction will go unnoticed, and your capacity to draw on its gifts will be diminished. To be grateful is to find blessings in everything. This is the most powerful attitude to adopt, for there are blessings in everything. Alan Cohen

At times, our own light goes out and is rekindled by a spark from another person. Each of us has cause to think with deep gratitude of those who have lighted the flame within us. Albert Schweitzer

Gratitude is the fairest blossom which springs from the soul. Henry Ward Beecher

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.

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

If you purchase an item through the Amazon link I receive a small percentage of the sale through the Amazon affiliate program.

See all 3 images

365 Health & Happiness Boosters Paperback – Jan 1 2000

by M. J. Ryan (Author)

Posted on by BWThomas

The paradox of life. Finding the balance between stability, predictability, challenge, and excitement

Finding the balance between stability, predictability, challenge, and excitement. The paradox of life.

Painting by Belynda Wilson Thomas

Stay committed to your decisions, but stay flexible in your approach. Tony Robbins

Life is a paradox. We find things in our lives that are contradictory and true at the same time. Haven’t we all heard the more we give away the more we’ll have? The more we learn the less we’ll think we know. The more we care for others, the more we care for ourselves.

The more choices we have the less satisfied we are. The only constant is change. The more we argue with someone the less likely we will change their point of view.

Failure is not fatal, but fear of failure can immobilize us and make us miss the opportunities in our lives. The most successful are those who risked failure and in doing so risked success.

We need to learn to be okay with the paradoxes in life. When we were single we dreamed of being a couple. Is it true many marriages end because members of couples think it will be more fun, exciting, and rewarding being single again? Do they regret leaving good enough spouses and good enough marriages? 

We longed to have children but the twenty-four hour a day nature of parenthood can suck the life out of us. It takes up so much time all we have time for is work and kids. I loved being the mother of small children, but I revel in the freedom of having grown-up children.

Passion in a relationship is commesurate with the amount of uncertainty you can tolerate. Anthony Robbins

We long for stability and predictability and want excitement and danger at the same time. Can we have both? How many people leave their stable, predictable lives for an adventure and find themselves in a worse situation in the end? They have a fling with someone who only wants their money and when the money runs out they are alone and broke?

Can we find new experiences in our life without chucking everything? We see people changing their lives and we call it a mid-life crisis. They get a motorcycle, tattoos, new hairstyle, take up some new interests, sometimes they get out of marriages, change careers, or go live on a beach somewhere.

At some point when the dust settles, we are still left with ourselves. Could we bring some excitement into our lives without destroying everything?

This is one of the reasons I love Toastmasters. It brings excitement into my life by standing up in front of a crowd giving a speech, putting on a contest, entering a contest, and meeting new people. Without throwing out all the stability and predictability built into my life.

Creative pursuits bring challenges to our lives. Do we ever know how a creative pursuit will turn out? We can get into the flow of creativity, we will feel at times, wow. It’s amazing how good this is going. Just as quickly we can lose our vision. If we keep working we can bring it back to life again, or sometimes we never do. The unpredictability of it keeps us going, and adds excitement and interest to our lives.

Are we destined to waffle between wanting challenge and stability? Can we find challenges without giving up our own and our family’s stability? Can we keep the foundation of our life strong, and find excitement in ways that don’t undermine our family, community, and betray our values?

It’s our imagination that’s responsible for love, not the other person. Esther Perel

Marriage… Today we come to one person, and we basically are asking them to give us what once an entire village used to provide. Esther Perel

Love is about having: Desire is about wanting. Esther Perel

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.

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

If you purchase an item through the Amazon link I receive a small percentage of the sale through the Amazon affiliate program.

Braving the Wilderness: The Quest for True Belonging and the Courage to Stand Alone by [Brown, Brené]

Follow the Author

Brené Brown+ Follow

Braving the Wilderness: The Quest for True Belonging and the Courage to Stand Alone Kindle Edition

by Brené Brown (Author)

4.6 out of 5 stars    1,397 ratings

#1 Best Seller in Social Science Reference

 See all 10 formats and editions

Posted on by BWThomas

Do we worry too much? We can do the best we can and worrying won’t change anything.

We can do the best we can and worrying won't change anything. Do we worry too much?

Painting by Belynda Wilson Thomas

Worry never robs tomorrow of its sorrow, it only saps today of its joy. Leo F. Buscaglia

Why do we spend so much time worrying? I couldn’t sleep two nights ago worrying about an event I was hosting. What good did worrying about something I couldn’t change at that moment do?

It makes me wonder how event planners function. When their daily life is putting together someone else’s biggest moment the pressure must be immense. At some point we have to trust we’ve made the arrangements, delegated responsibilities, issued invites, and sent out directions. It is as they say out of our hands but often our mind still goes on churning about what if this happens, or that goes wrong.

Then the event happens and people show up, and everything doesn’t go as planned but we make adjustments. We laugh and enjoy ourselves, and everyone else enjoys themselves, and we wonder why were we so worried?

If we do this often enough we will worry less. We will relish the excitement and adrenalin that putting on an event gives us. We will develop camaraderie with those we chose to help us. We will build a network.

The more we put into life the more we get out of it. Standing on the sidelines thinking other people are having more fun is no way to live. When we get involved, take on responsibilities, and help other people achieve their goals we enjoy life more.

My husband keeps asking, how much does Toastmaster’s pay? It pays a lot, but not in spendable money. We get opportunities to grow and develop to be more than we were, to become the best we can be, to stretch ourselves. It pays in building a network of like-minded people. Our confidence grows with self-development and by helping others develop.

Worry often gives a small thing a big shadow. Swedish Proverb

I was speaking to a lady at my Toastmaster’s group and her husband like mine thought the amount of time and energy spent on Toastmasters was too much. Sometimes, for short periods of time, it is, and it could continually be, but I will limit it to what is reasonable. We have to find balance; we don’t want to ruin our home life being too busy outside of it. We don’t want to cause our partners to worry that all of the excitement in our life happens without them.

Don’t worry, be happy can be good or bad. If we don’t worry and think things will take care of themselves we should have looked after – things won’t go well. Hope is not a plan. If we’ve done everything we can, and we are still worrying – we need to let go and trust it will unfold as it will, we’ve done what we could, and we’ll adjust.

Do we worry too much? Do we spend too much time worrying instead of living in the moment?

Our fatigue is often caused not by work, but by worry, frustration, and resentment. Dale Carnegie

If you want to test your memory, try to recall what you were worrying about one year ago today. E. Joseph Cossman

When I look back on all these worries. I remember the story of an old man who said on his deathbed that he had a lot of trouble in his life, most of which never happened. Winston Churchill

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.

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

If you purchase an item through the Amazon link I receive a small percentage of the sale through the Amazon affiliate program.

See all 3 images

Daring Greatly: How the Courage to Be Vulnerable Transforms the Way We Live, Love, Parent, and Lead Paperback – Apr 7 2015

by Brené Brown (Author) 4.7 out of 5 stars 4,774 ratings

 See all 20 formats and editions

Posted on by BWThomas

Family day should be every day. Love your family while you can.

Love your family while you can. Family day should be every day.

Painting by Belynda Wilson Thomas

The bond that links your true family is not one of blood, but of respect and joy in each other’s life. Richard Bach

Yesterday while we made breakfast our friend the humble skunk was in our backyard. He or she slowly ambled to the side yard. I like the idea of non-violence but we have to be able to take care of ourselves and the skunk exemplifies this. I’ll leave you alone if you leave me alone they seem to say as they amble about unhurriedly.

Enjoying meals together as a family is a simple blessing. Being part of a family makes our lives complete. Our circle will grow and shrink depending on who can show up for family dinners, and the circumstances that occur in our lives. Sometimes the empty chair is almost unbearable, but bear it we must. We are left with memories of better times. If the missing person in our life got to the end of their life we can be grateful for the part they played in ours. We can be grateful for all the good times we had. If they are still alive and it is a breach that needs to be healed we can try and become the healer of the breach. Someone has to do it, why not us?

If we don’t try and heal the breaches between us, the breach will forever remain, but at some point, the person is no longer alive and we can never repair it. We will continue to live with the pain of our unhealed relationship. Can we forgive people even if we don’t talk to them? Can we forgive them even after their death? Not all relationships can be fixed, but we have to find some measure of peace, and forgiveness may be the way forward. Forgiveness does not say, we are okay with what was done to us. Forgiveness says we are making peace with what is, and what was, and we are not carrying the vitriol we feel anymore. Pain, hurt and betrayal, are not controlling any more of our life.

What can you do to promote world peace? Go home and love your family. Mother Teresa

Today is Family Day in Canada. It is a day to draw close to each other, talk, laugh and enjoy each other’s company. Family day is not only for those families that look perfect and act perfect. Being part of a family is messy, funny, maddening, empowering, and where we should feel loved, accepted, understood, and encouraged.

Family is important for all of us; it is where we find our first sense of belonging. It is where we learn to relate to others, how to act, how to love and be loved. Our families have in many cases done the best they could throughout time to get their children to adulthood and create families of their own. The fact that we are here is a testament to our families surviving into the next generation.

Our society can only be strong if our families are strong. Building a family is a testament to our faith in the future. It shows our trust that it is worth building a family to take our genes into the next generation.

Of all the things I’ve done in my life building, a family holds the most significance. There is nothing else we can do that can give us what family gives us. It is our responsibility to take our place in society, and help build it, even if we don’t have children ourselves we can strengthen our society by supporting those who do.

Today can we be grateful for those people in our life we call family? Can we hug them a little tighter? Make a call if we can’t see them, to say I love you, and thanks for being in our life?

Nothing in the world can take the place of family. Not all people we consider part of our families are related by blood. Can we continue to build our family, and widen our circle by embracing those we meet along the way?

Love your family. Spend time, be kind and serve one another. Make no room for regrets. Tomorrow is not promised and today is short. Unknown

Call it a clan, call it a network, call it a tribe, call it a family: Whatever you call it, whoever you are, you need one. Jane Howard

The only rock I know that stays steady, the only institution I know that works, is the family. Lee Iacocca

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, family, and love.

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

If you purchase an item through the Amazon link I receive a small percentage of the sale through the Amazon affiliate program.

The 7 Habits of Highly Effective Families: Building a Beautiful Family by [Covey, Stephen R.]

Follow the Author

Stephen R. Covey+ Follow

The 7 Habits of Highly Effective Families: Building a Beautiful Family Kindle Edition

by Stephen R. Covey (Author), Sandra M. Covey (Foreword)

4.5 out of 5 stars    221 ratings

 See all 28 formats and editions

Posted on by BWThomas

Bridging the chasm of hate. Are we a bridge to understanding others? Do we first seek to understand, then seek to be understood?

Do we seek first to understand, then seek to be understood? Are we a bridge to understanding others. Bridging the chasm of hate.

Painting by Belynda Wilson Thomas

It is not our differences that divide us. It is our inability to recognize, accept, and celebrate those differences. Unknown

My son recommended one of Joe Rogan’s talks with Daryl Davis on YouTube. Daryl Davis has a Ted Talk which I watched first. This is one of the most impressive people I’ve listened to. He said he grew up with a question, “How can you hate me if you don’t know me?”

He’s a piano player and was playing with a band in a bar where he was the only black person in the room. A white man came up to him and told him he liked the way he played the piano. He invited him for a drink and they started to talk.

The white man said he’d never talked to a black man before. He was also surprised to hear a black piano player playing the piano like Jerry Lee Lewis. Anyone who knows music knows Jerry Lee Lewis’s piano playing came straight from black piano players. This is common knowledge that not everyone knows.

That same evening the man told Daryl Davis he was with the KKK. Daryl saw this as an opportunity to get his question answered, “How can you hate me if you don’t know me?” The evening ended with the white man saying, “Let me know when you’re playing here again and I’ll come down and see you.”

Daryl Davis seems unoffendable. He doesn’t take what someone thinks about him and believes it. By trying to understand the ignorance and fear that leads to hate, he seeks to understand and has led more than 200 people from the KKK. Daryl has been to Klan rallies and is the only black person to write a book on the Klan. Klan-destine Relationships: A Black Man’s Odyssey in the Ku Klux Klan by Daryl Davis.

Seek first to understand, then to be understood. Stephen R. Covey

Is he onto something by seeking to understand and when uncovering things that could offend, choosing to be unoffended? If we are to have relationships with people who do not believe exactly what we believe we may be offended by some of their beliefs.

If we don’t get to know people we remain ignorant of them, what they believe, their view of the world and humanity, what they hope and what they fear. Everybody is more than their worst beliefs. Daryl Davis has done with friendship and acceptance what many would have said could not be done. By accepting people how they are, telling them where their beliefs and his did not converge he developed friendships with people no one believed could be friends. He probably would never have thought he could be friends with someone who was in the KKK, nor probably did that first KKK member think he could become friends with a black man.

We don’t know who we will meet that will change our lives. It may be the most unlikely person. It seems the answer to Daryl Davis’s question, “How can you hate me if you don’t know me?” Is that we hate what we don’t know, and what scares us. When we get to know others, what they think, fear, value, love, believe, and practice we don’t have to believe, value, practice or love those things. But, with understanding, we don’t have to fear them. We can be friends even if we don’t see eye to eye on everything. We may learn things from them we would learn no other way, and they may learn things from us.

Can we offer the hand of friendship to people different than ourselves? We may make our lives and theirs better.

Nobody can hurt me without my permission. Mahatma Gandhi

The will to understand others is the basis of compassion. If you feel wronged by another, it is because your will to understand is not strong enough. Unknown

If we could look into each other’s heart and understand the unique challenges each one of us face, I think we would treat each other much more gently, with more love, patience, tolerance and care. 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.

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

If you purchase an item through the Amazon link I receive a small percentage of the sale through the Amazon affiliate program.

See all 3 images

Unoffendable: How Just One Change Can Make All of Life Better Paperback – Apr 14 2015

by Brant Hansen (Author) 4.8 out of 5 stars 768 ratings

 See all 4 formats and editions

Posted on by BWThomas

Complaining is communication. Contempt is sulfuric acid in relationships.

Contempt is sulfuric acid in relationships. Complaining is communication.

Painting by Belynda Wilson Thomas

Behind every complaint is a deep personal longing. Dr. John Gottman

Over the weekend we watched The Marriage Story on Net flicks. It is a cautionary tale of a couple separating and not planning to use lawyers but when the wife gets a lawyer the husband must also. Mudslinging starts and in the end, they’ve spent a lot of money, hurt each other and said things that can never be taken back, but basically have the divorce they could have had if they sat at the kitchen table like adults and agreed on custody and property division.

It is easy to see how we want someone on our side, who sees things how we see them, but it comes at a heavy cost. Some relationships are beyond repair, ending them with as little hurt and vitriol especially if there are children should be everyone’s goal.

Fractured relationships are always sad. Unmet expectations are probably why the marriage is in trouble in the first place. One of the things we have to do in life is to deal with reality.

We are who we are, and our partner is who they are, wishing we or they were different is not helpful. Becoming the best we can be, and helping them be the best, and not dwelling on the negative may be the hardest thing we do. The things we liked about our partner are still there even if we don’t acknowledge them. The Marriage Story starts out with each spouse reading a list they’ve written about the good things about their partner. They are to read it aloud in front of their partner at a mediation session. The wife refused to read hers, and storms out of the office.

She was probably thinking if I have all this good stuff to say about him and we are splitting up that doesn’t make sense. That’s what you do when you are staying together, not dealing with the issues, and stepping around the elephant in the room.

Some people will never separate, and they also will never solve their problems but live bitter, lonely lives, together. This seems worse, but they are enduring to the end.

In The Marriage Story, it always seems they have enough going for them as a couple including a young son, that they could have reconciled and lived a good life. The husband seems bewildered how they actually ended up in this situation, even though he succumbed to an affair after living in a sexless marriage for a year.

You don’t have to be interesting. You have to be interested. Dr. John Gottman

When communication breaks down what are we left with? When this happens in a relationship it is often called stonewalling. How do we thaw this freeze in our relationships? Even though they worked together they couldn’t sort it out and when she left to go across the country for an opportunity, it was over.

We think people should be better than they are, we think we should be better than we are. Everyone is capable of hurting someone; we are all capable of selfish actions. We are all capable of pretending to ourselves and others that things are better than they are. Do we all need a dose of radical honesty? What if we tell the truth to those we love? We also have to be willing to hear the truth back, but at least then don’t we have something to work with?

If we say we aren’t getting a lawyer involved. Having someone served with divorce papers when they come to visit their wife and son at her mother’s house seems like blindsiding someone on an unimaginable level.

If you get a chance, watch the movie. It is a conversation starter if not about our own relationship then about relationships in general. Isn’t more communication better than less communication? Blindsiding someone seems unfair. We may not think we are blindsiding someone when we bring up something that is bothering us, but they may feel blindsided.

In Dr. John Gottman’s 10 Lessons to Transform Your Marriage, he tells us we need to be able to hear our partner’s anger, resentment, and disappointment, and they need to hear ours. When we are expressing our anger, resentment, and disappointment we should focus on our own feelings and express these feelings in ways that are not critical, hostile, blaming, or contemptuous. The more we listen to our partner, and they listen to us, the more we can work through our feelings.

The more we feel our feelings and deal with them the more likely we are to get through the stages of marriage that often lead to divorce. Dr. John Gottman says complaining but not criticizing is good for our marriage. Our partner needs to understand how we feel, what we want, what we find disappointing, what changes we would like to make.

What if more complaining (but not criticizing) is a change we should make to strengthen our marriage?

The four horsemen of the apocalypse predict an ailing marriage: criticism, defensiveness, stonewalling and contempt. The worst of these is contempt. Dr. John Gottman

We have found that the success or failure of marriage depends not on whether there is conflict, but on how conflict is handled when it does occur. The Gottman Laboratory Studies

In order to get to a healthier and more productive place, we need to give up our fear of conflict, turmoil and resistance. Dr. John Gottman

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.

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

If you purchase an item through the Amazon.ca link I receive a small percentage of the sale through the Amazon.ca affiliate program.

See this image

Ten Lessons to Transform Your Marriage: America’s Love Lab Experts Share Their Strategies for Strengthening Your Relationship Paperback – Jun 26 2007

by John Gottman PhD (Author), Julie Schwartz Gottman (Author), Joan DeClaire (Author) 4.0 out of 5 stars 9 ratings

 See all 12 formats and editions

Posted on by BWThomas

Missing the mark. Living with gratitude and forgiveness for ourselves and others.

Living with gratitude and forgiveness for ourselves and others. Missing the mark.

Painting by Belynda Wilson Thomas

Your time is limited, so don’t waste it living someone else’s life. Don’t be trapped by dogma – which is living with the results of other people’s thinking. Don’t let the noise of others’ opinions drown out your own inner voice. And most important, have the courage to follow your heart and intuition. Steve Jobs

I’ve finished reading The Having The Secret Art of Feeling and Growing Rich by Suh Yoon Lee and Jooyun Hong. In it she tells us one of the problems we have is fixed ideas. We think that certain things are always bad, but many people who succeeded greatly in life and had failures that pushed them to higher success.

I was told I was just like someone I don’t admire.  As I thought about some of the attributes the person has, I thought maybe we do share some of the same attributes. The person is thoughtful, kind, caring, and creative but never built a good life for themselves, never put their own self-interest to the forefront enough. Perhaps they weren’t narcissistic enough, selfish enough, or strong enough to stand up for themselves and those they were responsible for.

Perhaps there, but for the grace of God go I? If we aren’t lucky enough to get strong families who can protect us from people who take advantage of us, perhaps we learn to accept being taken advantage of, perhaps we are even drawn to those types of people? Or maybe the opposite is sometimes true, we decide no one will ever take advantage of us again, so we take advantage first and seek out those we can take advantage of. We decided if the only choice is to take advantage of someone or be taken advantage of by someone we knew which one we’d rather be. That may be why the bullied grow up to be bullies.

When we have a loving, supportive, strong family we take it for granted. We look at others thinking they should be strong, but without a strong foundation where is that strength to come from?

Often something sweet given at a critical time becomes poisonous later, or something typically considered a misfortune gives the person a chance to be reborn. Suh Yoon Lee

In the book, we are told to listen to our intuition, to that still voice within.  Are we being the best person we can be, are our actions aligned with our values? Are we authentic? Are we okay with who we are, are we comfortable in our own skin, are we strong enough to accept what is, and be grateful? Are we willing to find the hidden gifts? Do we realize that there are seasons in our life and we can’t be reaping during planting time? Do we recognize things are too good to be true but go after them anyway?

Are we willing to live with what we need, so we are free to go after what we want? There will be bitter and there will be sweet, no one only gets sweet. Do we appreciate and respect people in our lives, even if they are not perfect? They have their struggles and we have ours.

When we love others, do we love them in a way they understand as love? Do we respect them in ways they understand as respect? Many of the problems in our relationships are caused by our inability to understand each other. In truth, it can be like men and women speak a different language, and what is most important to him, is not what is most important to her.

I was looking at a forum yesterday a young man said his long term girlfriend told him she got a text from an ex-boyfriend saying he achieved his big goal. She congratulated him over a text. The boyfriend looked at her phone and sure enough, he saw the text from the ex-boyfriend and his girlfriend’s congratulatory texts. They went back and forth about ten texts with nothing in it but congratulatory stuff. He broke up with her because it was more than one text. He felt she was lying. Some on the forum told him he did the right thing because anything less than perfection from a girlfriend is not acceptable.

We can’t get perfection from our partners. They will have flaws and they will make mistakes, and they will talk to people or text people we would rather they didn’t talk to or text. If we don’t love people enough to work through the challenges that will crop up in relationships we won’t have relationships. We may expect more from someone than they can give. We may think our lives together should have unfolded differently. Whatever the challenges we have in our life, they are our challenges; we must meet them, overcome them, or live with them.

When we believe the worst of people instead of the best in people. When we think their motives are bad instead of good, do we get more of what we fear? If we are afraid to take chances in life or love because we might fail, be hurt, or look ridiculous, where will this get us? The worst may happen and we need to be strong enough to deal with whatever life throws at us. Sometimes the worst can and does happen. If we are willing to deal with what is, the good, the bad, the happy, the sad, and ride the roller coaster of life, living each day with gratitude we can have a good life. This is our life, enjoy it, savor it, and be willing to give the people in our lives a chance to redeem themselves. Other people are neither their best nor their worst, and neither are we.

Do we need more forgiveness in our lives? Do we need to forgive ourselves and others for missing the mark?

Words are seeds they do more than blow around; they land in our hearts, and not on the ground. Be careful what you plant and be careful what you say. You might have to eat what you planted one day. Unknown

Never judge someone without knowing the whole story. You may think you understand but you don’t. Unknown

Why is it that we can be so quick to judge others and not so quick to take a look at ourselves? 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, forgiveness, and love.

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

If you purchase an item through the Amazon.ca link I receive a small percentage of the sale through the Amazon.ca affiliate link.

See this image

The Having: The Secret Art of Feeling and Growing Rich Hardcover – Feb 5 2019

by Suh Yoon Lee (Author), Jooyun Hong (Author) 4.0 out of 5 stars 1 rating

 See all 3 formats and editions

Posted on by BWThomas

Gratitude and Thanksgiving. Celebration with food and wine, how divine?

Celebration with food and wine, how divine. Gratitude and Thanksgiving.

Painting by Belynda Wilson Thomas

Not what we say about our blessings, but how we use them, is the true measure of our Thanksgiving. W.T. Purkiser

Thanksgiving brought us a bright and glorious weekend.  Three birthdays and Thanksgiving converged and we celebrated on Sunday with dinner, laughs, and a groaning table. It was a fun and happy evening.

There is so much to be grateful for when we are lucky enough to get together and enjoy each other’s company. My sister-in-law came from a wedding celebration and showed us pictures of the radiant bride and happy groom.

Yesterday I called Mom and it is with a grateful heart I realize how lucky I am to still be able to make that Thanksgiving Day call. She went to a 90th birthday celebration for a friend the day before.

I’m looking at my post from last year. We didn’t celebrate Thanksgiving with a big dinner at our house. Everyone was off doing their own thing and the birthdays got celebrated the next week. My husband and I went for a long walk and then a lovely dinner. Yesterday we ended up talking and laughing over lunch in a nice restaurant. “I thought it would be nicer than our usual,” my husband said.

Last year I wrote:

Everything works in my life because of the love, support, and connection my husband and I have. We are entering stages of our life we don’t want to enter. Luckily we have each other and we will laugh and enjoy all that comes with it. As we weather the trials and tribulations with as much good humor as we can muster we will continue to grow together. We are a team; we can’t imagine not being a team. Our life only works as a team.

We need to balance individual goals and couple goals. This is our time, this is our life, we need to think about what we want and bring it into fruition. We can’t control a lot of things, we have to embrace insecurity, we also have to embrace each other and make the best of what we have, what we want, and what will be.

If the only prayer you ever say in your entire life is thank you, it will be enough. Meister Eckhart

It is all still true. Our children are making the decisions we once agonized over. When do we start a family, where do we live, will we be able to afford our own home?

If we can weather the storms, uncertainties, challenges we see coming and the ones we don’t see coming we can get from here to there as a couple. There is no happily ever after, not in the way people think. It is happily meeting the challenges of life as they come up, meeting each other’s needs, finding joy every day, pushing ourselves to take the next step and being the best we can be for our partners, families, and ourselves.

Is it in building a life and family we find meaning and purpose? It is hard to think of a better way to wring more joy out of life than to sit down to a family dinner, full of warmth, humor, love, joy, and accomplishment and not feel full of pride, contentment, and that it is all worth it.

Our children, nieces, and nephews bring in partners, and later as grandchildren join us our circles widen. Our hearts embrace everyone. When there is no longer room for everyone at one table we will need to make other arrangements, but we can always have room in our hearts.

Some day we may hear, “do I have to sit at the kiddy table?”

Thanksgiving is a time of togetherness and gratitude. Nigel Hamilton

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.

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

If you purchase an item through the Amazon.ca link I do receive a small percentage of the sale through the Amazon.ca affiliate program.

See all 3 images

Thanks!: How Practicing Gratitude Can Make You Happier Paperback – Nov 6 2008

by Robert Emmons (Author) 5.0 out of 5 stars 2 ratings

 See all 7 formats and editions

Posted on by BWThomas

Is gratitude the key to happiness, abundance, and joy? Does gratitude shift our perception so that it changes the world we see? Does gratitude come before joy?

Does gratitude shift our perception so that it changes the world we see? Does gratitude come before joy? Is gratitude the key to happiness, abundance, and joy?

Painting by Belynda Wilson Thomas

Let us rise up and be thankful, for if we didn’t learn a lot at least we learned a little, and if we didn’t learn a little, at least we didn’t get sick, and if we got sick, at least we didn’t die; so let’s all be thankful. Buddha

As I sit here sunshine floods my den. The birds were singing on my walk, the flowers were blooming, everything is lush and green. The hustle and bustle of the day hasn’t started yet.

My morning reading from Never Get Angry Again by David J. Lieberman talks of the magnitude of gratitude. Don’t we feel better when we count our blessings instead of our angst, troubles, worries, shortcomings, fears, hurts, slights, where we’ve been wronged, how we’ve been misjudged, short-changed, or mistreated?

The more we think about what we have to be grateful for the more we can see we have even more to be grateful for. If we are grateful not only for the good things in our life but for the absence of bad things, our gratitude list grows even longer. Even when things are not as good as we may want, it usually isn’t as bad as it could be.

There are people in this world going through the absolute worst we can imagine, but if it isn’t us we should be grateful. If we have the wherewithal to get through the worst we should be grateful. If we can learn to be thankful for what we already have while we pursue all that we want life can be beautiful, and joyful in every moment. To walk through life on autopilot not noticing the blessings of the day, and the moments that will not come again we miss our life.

We don’t know when our life can be changed forever. Did we enjoy everything, or were we too busy looking down the road for what is coming to enjoy what is here today?

Last night instead of going to Toastmasters my husband and I went for an ice-cream cone. I got the dreamsicle dip instead of chocolate. Ice-cream, what a lovely summer treat on a summer’s eve. We watched young families, older couples in convertibles, a young man and his dog, old friends, and young friends all out enjoying a beautiful summer evening.

This is our life, minutes, hours, days, weeks, months, and years go by in a flash. If we live our life with gratitude and savor all that there is we can live with love, grace, and gratitude.

If we live as if everything is a miracle our viewpoint will be one way, and if we live as if nothing is a miracle we will see things differently. It is our choice how we view our life, “Same old, same old,” or “This is a wonderful day I’ve never seen before.”

The real gift of gratitude is that the more grateful you are, the more present you become. Robert Holden

Oprah Winfrey tells us if we are thankful for what we have; we’ll end up having more. If we concentrate on what we don’t have, we’ll never have enough.

It is easier to write about always being grateful than to live a life always being grateful, for everything. Are we grateful for the challenges that come our way? They help us grow and every step forward helps us move toward our goals making something bigger and better than our current situation.

When things are going wrong should we take a moment and be thankful for what is going right?

Gratitude unlocks the fullness of life. It turns what we have into enough, and more. It turns denial into acceptance, chaos into order, confusion to clarity. It can turn a meal into a feast, a house into a home, a stranger into a friend. Melody Beattie

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.

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

If you purchase an item through the Amazon.ca link I may receive a small percentage of the sale through the Amazon.ca affiliate program.

See this image

Never Get Angry Again: The Foolproof Way to Stay Calm and in Control in Any Conversation or SituationHardcover – Jan 9 2018

by Dr. David J. Lieberman Ph.D. (Author) 5.0 out of 5 stars 1 customer review

 See all 4 formats and editions