Dear One,
With deepening intention to share illuminating ideas for alleviating your journey and elevating you, I offer ‘Thanking.’
You are warmly welcome here as I share with you and for you from my heart what helped me with inner healing from a long Lyme healing journey. In hopes, it assists y-o-u.
These writings are shifting not in topic, alas to speak to and hopefully help women with Lyme –
Who are silently suffering in the dark –
To reclaim their power – and then some – to potentially radiantly recover.
From my heart of heart, I believe if these mindset and spiritual shifts can assist me in healing, it may help others too.
Without further adieu, let’s talk Thanking.
What does enjoying a special evening meal with loved ones or enjoying a family walk including a beloved pup perhaps induce?
Likely good vibes and – Thanking.
Thanking actually bumps optimism, spirituality, and self-esteem while reducing materialism and self-centeredness per Steve Scott at HappierHuman.com; what terrific research nuggets.
I’m fascinated by Thanking’s science-backed benefits like improved physical and psychological health – and mental strength, reduced aggression, and lengthened quality sleep. It’s also a relationship door opener per Amy Morin in Forbes. Thanking can create familial bonds that endure in crises and boost patience and generosity too, say studies.
Thanking’s an opportunity – to open to receive more for which to be Thankful and to attract increased reasons for Thanks giving.
What’s not to love?
But, uh… what about Thanking when you’re not feeling it?
Like in illness, after years. After treatments working not so well or fair enough. And, you can go to the grocery store yet not get your business back up and running. Or you just don’t feel like y-o-u yet.
Ohhh I feel you.
Having my life nearly scorched from Lyme and a treatment gone awry allowed for discoveries; a biggie was that Thanking “isn’t a feeling that materializes in response to your circumstances. It is a practice.” You betcha, Arthur C. Brooks on smartagain.org.
This isn’t faux-happy-face plastering over challenge or pretending. It’s growing a Thanking muscle. Which takes practice and little by little adding to your life.
These ideas were and are helpful to me:
• Writing It Down Regularly – Daily even. And, actually prior to totally feeling it. Before sleep, noting what’s to be grateful for from that day. A warm bed, lavender toenail polish, clean water … or, being able to walk stairs instead of wheelchair riding in elevators and drive instead of being parked by another in Handicap spots (not that there is anything wrong with these things). This alters the frame of mind for potential Thanking more often,
• Expressing Verbal Thanks – Anywhere, anytime, for any sized goodness. Sprinkling that business all around. To the woman bagging at grocery checkout or to a man holding a minimart fridge door open so an out-of-reach seltzer’s grabbable. Opportunities abound when paying attention,
• Mulling or Pondering Any Potential Upside to your Lyme Journey – Yep, this can be tricky; it truly takes practice. For me, one example of an inner outcome I am thankful for from Lyme is humility. It caused me to lean into reducing perfectionism, delving into and owning weaknesses to, eventually, accept and tolerate them better plus sharing them more vulnerably here – with you,
• “’Thank You’ – is the best prayer anyone could say. I say that a lot. Thank you expresses extreme gratitude, humility, understanding” per Alice Walker. Perception & perspective shift when prayer and God, the Divine, are in the mix. With Heaven, anything and everything can, eventually, be seen as a blessing – and even for Thanking. This may seem like hogwash – as it used to be to me too. Until it slowly may unfurl as Truth, and/or
• Consider Your Language – Using words like gifts, abundance, treasures, or fortunate can shift focus even in an itty bitty way to what deserves Thanking. Asking yourself internally ‘How are they serving?’ may prompt looking for Thanking chances.
By growing a Thanking practice, or even little by little incorporating it into your lifestyle, “the tide of disappointment goes out and the tide of love rushes in.” Amen, Kristin Armstrong.
Thanking can authentically connect you with others and elevate a moment from one easily passed by into a memory held close. Yummy.
May Thanking, a “sign of noble souls,” increase your heart’s happiness and magnify more of your scrumptious self,
Judy
Thanks for the parting quote, Aesop’s Fables.