Gratitude

There is a calmness

to a life lived in gratitude

– a quiet joy.

~Ralph H. Blum

Gratitude for what is, what was and what may be.  This is how I live my life.  I am grateful for all the experiences, even those which have been sad, devastating and hard, as well as those experiences where I have searched and found the ‘good’ in what initially I viewed with suffering in my heart.  We have all heard, ‘time heals all wounds.’  But is that really true?  I am undecided, but yet, I feel that there is a choice in how we view the wounds as time goes by.  We can choose to have the wounds define us or empower us.  We are free to choose and it is in our choice, we continue to find peace and calmness in our lives.

So today on Thanksgiving, may we look upon the day with gratitude, love, calmness and joy.  View our world with peace in our hearts and allow healing love to surround us.

As always, I am grateful to be here with  you, to connect with you and to find the joy in the moment with you.  Let’s share gratitude for The Presents of Presence together!

Shine On!

xo

 

 

A New Dawn

Good Morning to YOU!  I awoke early this morning and I have truly enjoyed such a delightful few hours that I don’t care that I’ve not had much sleep as they were so wonderful to experience that I am feeling even more blessed than usual.  In the quiet of the very early morning (think 3am!) I began my day today, enjoying a fresh cup of my favorite  Breakfast Blend (best price I’ve found thus far so thought I’d share), flanked by ‘the girls’ (our 2 cats) and the peaceful quiet of the early morning.

I am excited because things are starting to roll for me again…I can see the new dawn and a new beginning for me.  I am feeling a new-found energy which I had lost and I think that the taking care of me which I have been deliberately planning is beginning to work its magic!  Yesterday,  I met with my friend KAngel who in her infinite and patient wisdom helped me to re-see my vision that I had formed awhile ago.  I am excitedly working on something new which I’ll unveil soon ~ and KAngel’s been a big part of it.

But since I had so much me time that I hadn’t planned on, I thought I’d just peruse a few blogs this morning that I follow and what a beautiful gift this morning’s array of blog posts was!  In fact, some of them were a few days old and then as I went through the archives, I dug deeper into a few that I hadn’t seen before and the next thing I knew, it was 6am and time to awaken the troops!

Ahh…but I received so many gifts this morning that I thought I’d reblog a couple of them.  This is a first for me so I’m not quite sure if I am doing it right, but here goes!

From Lead.Learn.Live

a-star-is-born

I ended up bookmarking the site www.calm.com and enjoying a bit of the other scenes as well…what a magnificent way to enjoy my coffee this morning!

Thanks for the inspiration of song choice from sunday-songbird-5 which is from Andrea Kelly (sorry, I wanted to put in the lyrics!)

All to the tunes of

I wish you a beautiful day as well!

Enjoy!

xo

An Epiphany for Superwoman

Calm. Sometimes God calms the storm, sometimes He calms the sailor (Superwoman).

It’s been 12 weeks since my Dad passed away…12 weeks!  I can hardly believe that 3 full months have passed and that I’m still ticking off every Thursday afternoon as another week.  I saw this card and thought it was perfect for me because I’ve been feeling very stormy lately.  There is much going on in my life in addition to my Dad’s passing and being in charge of the subsequent details of wrapping up a human life’s affairs and business.   I am still in the midst of the eye of the storm.

However, I had an epiphany yesterday ~ so similar to this card that I had to write today.  You see, my stormy seas aren’t going away any time soon because there is still much to do for Dad, for my family and I am still healing from my surgery 2 weeks ago and have another scheduled for October.  The seas are really choppy for me right now, testing me and tossing me around with tear-filled moments.  So I’m asking for God/Universe/Spirit to calm them, but more fervently, I am asking for calm for me.  You see, I’ve ridden stormy seas before with my breast cancer and other life challenges…I see them as a kind of test that we are put through…and this one is again, a test of a huge magnitude.

When I sit quietly which I have been doing more often lately now that the kids are back in school, I realize that my plate is overflowing.  I expect a lot from myself and in this moment, there is no exception to that rule.  In fact, before my epiphany, I was unable to see that perhaps I am not quite the Superwoman I expect myself to be.  In fact, there have been times recently that I have been full-blown disappointed in myself for not keeping up, for not doing it all, for not being able to clone myself into the 5 different roles I need to be 24/7!

I’m re-reading a compilation by one of my favorite authors now…and later on, I’ll tell you all about her, but her method is simple and it works.  In the hustle and bustle of these seas, I’d allowed myself to get tossed and not navigate my own life.  I hadn’t asked for help from anyone.  I’d simply loaded myself up until I crumbled.  Isn’t that the way many of us do it?  Superwomen/Supermen…we just keep taking on until we can no longer fit anything more without drowning.

Well, I’m not drowning ~ nope ~ not even close!  I took hold of the rudder this weekend and decided to steer my own ship through these waters.  I cried “UNCLE!” and gave it up to God/Universe/Spirit.  I handed it over ~ cast the burden so to speak ~ so that I could allow myself healing time.  I need to concentrate on growing my ‘self-love’ which I’d tossed by the wayside in the turmoil.

“I cast the burden on the Christ within and I am free to live in peace.”

Sound familiar to anyone?

xo