Gratitude for every little thing

I have been on quite a journey in these past several months, and I imagine you have been too. Life IS such a journey, such an adventure. While there have been many things that have struck me as fascinating, several moments of exquisite joy, and profound experiences of quiet reflection since I wrote last, I haven’t yet found a way to capture this leg of my journey in written words. I’ve jotted down a dozen different ideas for blog topics from the experiences of these past several months, and my hope is to begin writing them down, one by one, over the next few weeks. I look forward to sharing them with you.

Today, I was moved to write by my appreciation for the holiday of Thanksgiving. I love that we set aside an entire day to express gratitude. Gratitude has been on the forefront of my mind for a while now, as I made a decision in mid-August to begin posting a (nearly) daily expression of gratitude on my Facebook wall. A friend of mine had been doing this, and I just loved reading what she wrote. I decided to challenge myself to do the same, and I have really enjoyed it. Some days, I find that my gratitude is more related to work, and sometimes it is more personal. There are times that I have witnessed beautiful, awe-inspiring events, and there are challenging moments that help me appreciate better all the other moments I experience of genuine ease. Today, I was stuck behind a driver whose slow, traffic-light-stopping behavior created an initial reaction of judgment and annoyance. Stopped at the yellow light behind this person, I reflected back on all the times I made the light easily and all the commutes when I drove effortlessly to work and home again. By the time the light turned green, my energy had already completely changed for the positive, and I found myself smiling. From the simple practice of intentionally keeping my eyes open to all there is to appreciate, I have been experiencing a profound shift and lightening in my perspective.

I believe that every moment has the potential to engender gratitude. Regardless of whether I may wish to judge a single moment as “good” or “bad,” the accumulation of these single moments comprises the fabric of my life. So, what kind of tapestry am I weaving? I have the freedom to appreciate each moment. Or the freedom to lament about what that moment could have been but was not. For me, I choose to cultivate a spirit of gratitude – to celebrate the wonderful moments and to honor the gifts of those difficult times too.  I am grateful for my ability to make this choice and for the support I’ve received along the way that empowers me to do so.

On this Thanksgiving holiday, I express heartfelt love for the healers and teachers who have deeply enriched my life, whose nourishing spirits have empowered me to reach further and believe more, and whose compassion has sustained me in the darkest hours. I am also grateful for all the unintentional teachers I have known, those people and experiences who taught me lessons I had no desire to learn but that helped me grow in ways I couldn’t even imagine possible.

Finally, I wish to thank all of you who are following this blog. I appreciate your support along this journey and your encouragement to keep writing.  If you feel inspired to share your experiences, I’d love to hear about the role of gratitude in your own life. 

Wishing you peace, joy, inspiration, and resiliency on Thanksgiving!

Elizabeth

Enjoying life’s unexpected gifts and simple pleasures

This morning I was blessed to experience – and notice I was experiencing – a series of pleasantly surprising and truly enjoyable moments.  It began on a visit to my chiropractor’s office. Donna Funk is a network chiropractor and works simultaneously on several different people (allowing your body to rest between adjustments). Between Donna’s skill, the comfortable tables, and the peaceful music, the experience of having Donna work on you is relaxing and transformative. There were five of us on tables during my visit this morning, and, as sometimes happens, we somehow ended up engaging in a very funny conversation. Today’s topic was   “Chocovine.” Chocovine is a chocolate-infused dessert wine from Holland. We were all giggling at the thought of drinking chocovine through straws as we lay face down on the tables getting adjusted. We broke into laughter at the idea that we could create a wildly funny commercial endorsing Chocovine and our chiropractor, beaming in unison about how “divine” our experience had been. Getting adjusted, laughing, enjoying community – What a fabulous way to start the day!

From my chiropractor’s office, I headed out on some errands. I marveled and rejoiced when the first spot in the parking lot was available for me at, not one, but all three of the stores where I went. Amazing! Then, at the bank, they were able to resolve a previously complicated issue with ease and humor, and I really enjoyed talking with the bank employee who helped me. After this, I went on my Blackberry and scrolled through Facebook posts, only to learn from my friend Edie Weinstein that today is “Wiggle your toes day.” This piece of information not only caused me to wiggle with glee but to giggle enthusiastically. What fun! Since being trained in laughter yoga in June - and engaging in a regular laughter yoga practice since then - I have been able to laugh more and more easily. I love laughing, and I love sharing laughter yoga with others. I find myself opening to deeper experiences of joy and love. 

When I settled down on the couch at home to read a book later, my two kitties snuggled up beside me. On my right, sweet Zoe had her paws criss-crossed in front of her, resting gently on my leg.  On my left, Lucy placed her little head on my lap and purred. What a beautiful moment to celebrate! Filled with gratitude for this wondrous morning, I sat down to write and share my experiences with all of you. While seemingly simple, and possibly insubstantial to some, this lovely tapestry of moments uplifted my spirit and energized me for the day ahead.

Today I wish you moments of laughter, love, and pure joy – and an open heart with which to experience the mini-miracles around you every day. 

Risking Vulnerability

In July, The Resiliency Center hosted the second half of the EMDR Basic Training with trainer Barb Maiberger (from Boulder, Colorado) and twelve dedicated and caring clinicians. As a Certified EMDR therapist, I was honored to participate in the training as a consultant and to offer support and guidance to the therapists learning this new modality.  Over these three days, I felt inspired by the courage I witnessed in our practitioner community. A large part of the EMDR training is experiential, as therapists authentically engage from the roles of both counselor and client. Bearing witness to the risks taken by the community of clinicians in the EMDR training was deeply gratifying, as I saw tremendous openness, compassion, and health among this amazing group of practitioners.

Allowing ourselves to be vulnerable is rarely easy. While we may know intellectually that all people have old hurts and unprocessed “stuff,” we sometimes fall into the trap of thinking that, as practitioners, we should somehow be immune from the effects of our past experiences or have already worked through all of them. In reality, personal and professional growth is a lifelong endeavor, and our old wounds may surface time and again for deeper healing. Prioritizing time to do our own work is a key component of what keeps us well and thriving in our work – and in our lives. I know that my ability to be fully attuned and skillful as a counselor and consultant depends upon my own active process of healing and growth. I love engaging in this process. I love experiential trainings as well as acupuncture, massage, laughter yoga, journal writing, meditating, painting, and participating in a women’s group. I also love dialoguing with other professionals about their wellness practices. If you haven’t already responded to any of the posts on this blog, please do. I’d love to hear from each of you about how you keep yourself healthy. In what ways do you insure that you are keeping your instrument tuned?

Spring nourishment... by Guest Blog Writer Tracie Nichols

Spring is a time when nature’s returning abundance reminds us how well nourished we can be by our relationship with the rich and loving Earth. In the spring we have the chance to work with the energies of season and place to sweep away dusty habits and thoughts, finding the bright shoots of new nurturing practices for ourselves. Through our relationship with nature we are encouraged to ground deeply. We are prompted to remember our intrinsically wild nature...our deeply embedded need for the rhythmic patterns of stillness and movement our bodies remember, but our minds often forget.


As a practitioner supporting the well being of clients & patients, this relationship with the natural world offers you firm ground to stand on as you do your work. It helps ease feelings of isolation, connect you more deeply with your intuition, and discover a powerful spiritual expression. I’m speaking from personal experience. I live immersed in a flow of conscious relationship and communication with the natural world, and that keeps me grounded and centered, clear and focused. It helps me find a balance among the demands of my day as a business owner, educator, consultant, wife and mother, and spiritual woman on an ever expanding journey.

I bridge people and nature, teaching awareness practices co-created with the energies of nature. These practices offer people ways to reclaim that relationship for themselves. This vibrant spring, I’d like to share a simple awareness practice with you. I invite you to gift yourself with this experience of grounding into the compassion and gratitude radiating from the Earth daily, when you first wake up or when you are preparing to sleep. You and the natural world have so much to offer each other, truly!

• Sit or lay comfortably. Allow yourself to turn off technological distractions.

• Bring your awareness to your breath, inhaling gently for about 8 seconds, and exhaling gently for about 10 seconds. Continue focusing on your breath until this breathing pattern feels comfortable (usually just a few more breaths).

• With each exhalation allow your loving awareness to flow through your body toward the Earth - visualize roots finding their way into the soil, if it helps.

• With each inhalation notice that you can sense a loving, compassionate awareness from the Earth - visualize roots reaching out and touching yours - nourishment flowing between you, if it helps.

• Breathe into this growing sense of connection, allowing it to expand, feeling it in your body, knowing it in your heart.

• Notice how still and deep this feels. Notice how your breath softens. Notice how your sense of belonging grows, here, in this connected state of being. You are nourishing and being nourished, You are loving and being loved.

• Breathe here until you feel complete.

• Offer gratitude. Repeat often. Share liberally.

Tracie Nichols, M.A. teaches people how to fall in love with themselves again...by falling in love with the Earth again. She teaches how to lovingly transform the world...by lovingly transforming themselves. Her work transforms the pain & anxiety of isolation, of not belonging, into grounded peace and vibrant living by helping people remember their intrinsic, intuitive relationship with the land. She does this through private consultations, classes, public speaking and writings. Tracie invites you to connect with her through her website alchemyfortheearth.com, or by email at info@alchemyfortheearth.com.

Mindfully Choosing How We Respond to “Found” Time

My schedule for yesterday morning was full at the beginning of the week. On Thursday at 7:00 p.m., it was still full. And then I received two phone calls Thursday late evening cancelling my morning appointments. This meant that I had until 1:00 p.m. to myself to do as I pleased! As much as the business part of me sometimes groans when appointments are cancelled unexpectedly, my spirit often embraces the change in schedule.  This is also the case when things just don’t take as long as I’ve anticipated. Like the doctor’s appointment that I allotted two hours for that only took 30 minutes or the driver’s license renewal process that was ten minutes instead of the dreaded sixty. These are moments that may have us rejoicing – and moments that invite us to become increasingly conscious about how we spend our time.

When our schedules suddenly open up free time, we are faced with a choice. It is often far too easy to use that time unconsciously – to plunge the time back into work commitments or to hurry to our next destination early. But these unanticipated moments in our schedules offer us a real choice to prioritize self-care.  Perhaps we’ve wanted to go for a walk at a local park but felt we could “never find the time.” Perhaps we didn’t have time to meditate this morning and would like to devote our “found” 30 minutes to a daily mindfulness practice. Maybe we have a friend we’ve wanted to call or a book we’re yearning to read. I love viewing these “found” moments of time as gifts for myself, opportunities to mindfully choose what will enrich me most at this given time.

So what will you do the next time a few moments or a few hours open up in your life? As for me, when my morning opened up on Friday, I chose to sleep in later than usual, enjoy a leisurely morning, and do a little reading.  I felt refreshed, replenished, and a bit inspired as a result. I highly recommend it.  

Gratitude

I love Thanksgiving. How wonderful that we devote a day to enjoying the company of those we love and to expressing gratitude for one another and our many blessings.  Our wellbeing is nourished when we savor the bounty of the holiday meal we are enjoying and give thanks for the earth that produced it and the love that went into its preparation.  It feels good to share our thankfulness with one another – and for one another.

Tapping into and expressing our gratitude is a practice that sustains us in our work as well.  As counselors, we are incredibly privileged to do such meaningful work, to witness the resiliency of the human spirit to prevail under adversity, to share in the hope, dreams, and healing of those with whom we work. While our work involves empathic connection with pain and suffering, it also involves connection to courage and joy. Remembering the stories of triumph – especially in darker moments when the work is hard and the overcoming seems implausible – can help us sustain hope and tap into gratitude for the healing possible in the counseling process.

Today, and every day, I am incredibly thankful for the women, men, and children who have given me the honor of traveling with them on their journeys to healing.  Their courage and faith, perseverance and wisdom have inspired me and deeply enriched my life. I am also very thankful for my many teachers, the elders who have traveled before me, my phenomenal support community, and those who have nurtured me on my own healing journey.

Spending time with family today, I fill with happiness as I share laughter and hugs with the children in my life.  This morning, after running to the store for a few last minute items, I saw a family of five deer run through the neighborhood towards the woods. It was sweet and magnificent. As the snow falls lightly outside now, I am filled with gratitude for the beauty of the natural world and the changing of the seasons.

Allowing myself to turn my attention to the many blessings in my life, I am filled with joy.  Today, and every day, I wish you the joy and healing power of gratitude.