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The Yoga of Thanks
November is here and I am told that outside of Southern California they are having this thing called “weather.” Interesting, I may have to check it out sometime…
One of the great things about starting a newsletter is that for the first year, one can pretty much say anything since one doesn’t have to worry about what was written last year, gratitude given… Of course I still have to write something and I really do want it to be current, so I guess this is a great time to discuss thanks and gratitude.
I find in my own life that I can so easily forget to give thanks for what I have, they are with me every day and after a surprisingly short time they go from blessings to “just ares.” It is a good idea to bring them out of the background and celebrate them for what they truly are, blessings.
Here’s a short list of some of my blessings:
- My friends, the ones who help keep me sane.
- My health and its continuation.
- My awakenings, though not always loved at the moment, always turn out to be best in the end.
- My cats, they actually put up with me EVERY day, all they ask is that I feed and clean the box regularly, petting is sometimes optional and sometimes not.
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When life gets to me, I am always SO glad when I get to that moment when enough sanity returns so that I can change the focus of my day and giving thanks for the blessings (and sometimes not so blessings) can be an amazing weapon on my way to recovery.
Changing the focus of a moment is one of the easiest tools to have in your arsenal to make a happier and more enjoyable existence. I feel really stupid when I first start, but sometimes when I am in a bad mood, I force myself to laugh at nothing, unless something presents itself, it is contagious to the emotional state, laugh and you become happy (kind of explains “Laughing Yoga”).
Your emotions are the gauge by which your Spirit will often tell you if what you are creating is actually in harmony with your intent and or wishes. If your state falters from happy and fluffy, you might want to rethink what you are creating.
So here’s a couple of little homework assignments:
Don’t worry about what your emotional state is at every moment, but when it dawns on you that you are less than happy, take a look at it and see what is bothering you and then look even deeper to see what the real cause is. In my experience, the obvious cause is often just a symptom of the deeper issue…
If you are suffering from extremely negative emotional states or if you have the time to really analyze yourself, create a “Mood Diary.” Take a notepad around with you (OK, it’s a bit old school, Tweet it if you wish) and note what your state is and what you are doing and/or thinking. At the end of the day, look over what you have noted and start to see the patterns of your days. It is worth taking the moment to moment snapshots through the day, we forget SO MUCH by the end of the day, we decide it is unimportant, but at the time it was extremely important. Try it…
Spiritgeek’s Spiritual Calendar
I know that the calendar that we have on the wall starts in January, most likely based upon the Solar Year of the Sun’s apparent beginnings of return as it starts it’s rising in the sky towards Spring and Summer.
I sometimes think the calendar year should start on November 1st, since Halloween is actually about Death, why not start the year on the first day of the rebirth and the American holiday of Thanksgiving would be such an awesome start of the year. Imagine if we all spent the first month of the year preparing for the “Feast of Giving Thanks” and then the following month, December, would be about the birth of the deity within each and every one of us, what a nice idea.
What would be accomplished in our lives if we were to seriously spend a month preparing to give thanks (I have noticed several stores skipping it completely and replacing the Halloween decorations with Christmas ones).
There is an old expression that “the road to Hell is paved in good intentions” but I sometimes wonder if the road to Heaven is just paved in intention itself. We have to be willing to stand up and actually take action, otherwise inertia, or the lack thereof leads us to our grave as tired “old” people.
It is through intention that we determine what we see and how we relate to it. When things go bad, search for the “gold lining,” that will start you on your way to an improved vision. So my intention is to wish you a Happy New Year on this month of the Feast of Giving Thanks.
The Pilgrims made seven times more graves than huts. No Americans have been more impoverished than these who, nevertheless, set aside a day of thanksgiving.
H.U. Westermayer
If the only prayer you said in your whole life was, “thank you,” that would suffice.
Meister Eckhart
Gratitude is the memory of the heart.
Jean Baptiste Massieu
The only difference between a rut and a grave is a matter of depth.
Spiritgeek
