You are invited to use these Daily Gratitude Reflections on a daily basis. Start any time of the year, or right on New Year’s Day. Or you can just pick a passage randomly, then watch how the Universe surprises you with the perfect one!
Gratitude is a huge passion for me, is an integral part of my life, and has grown since I first started consciously practicing being grateful in the early 2000s. It has exponentially improved my own life. I went from being a complainer and enjoying regular pity-parties for no reason, really, to realizing how nonproductive that was. Why not look at what is right, what is going well, rather than focusing on problems?! This was a revelation for me.
Sometimes it feels like I am too repetitive, yet there are some important tenets in which I believe, and they do keep showing up in my gratitude reflections! My spiritual path, with all its twists and turns, brought me to discover the Centers for Spiritual Living in 1998, and since then, I deepen my faith every year. I firmly believe God is everywhere (as I was actually taught as a young girl with a Catholic upbringing). However, God is not a he or she, but omniscient. Each of us – all flora, all creatures, and every bit of nature and the stars beyond – are all part of this Presence. And God IS synonymous with love. With our free choice, we can create a heavenly life or a hellish existence. I choose love and peace and joy and harmony and beauty, and all the good stuff. So please forgive me for this repetition.
One of the people I most admire, Helen Keller, managed to find gratitude constantly, and chronicled it for us, despite her physical afflictions that would be too much for most people to handle. Viktor Frankl is another person I so admire, who survived the Holocaust, and consciously kept his spirits up, and wrote his monumental book Man’s Search for Meaning. The Dalai Lama, although exiled from his beloved country Thailand, forgave the Chinese leaders who pushed him out, and lives in peace and love, despite what he has gone through and is now a venerated, positive, ever-so-joyful spiritual world leader. I strive to be a person like them! I strive to be forever optimistic, and to find the pearls of good even in bad times.
It has been seven years or more
since I started writing Daily Gratitude Reflections to my email subscribers.
The Reflections in this book are the cream of the crop from the last three
years. Please enjoy them . . .
Deborah Perdue
– DAY 1 –
“The universe buries strange jewels deep within us all, and then stands back to see if we can find them.” - Elizabeth Gilbert
As I soul-search
and keep evolving, I discover and excavate more and more precious jewels within
me.
Who I was in my
twenties is not a reflection of who I am now.
I have become more
extroverted, though I am still an introvert.
I keep finding
facets of creativity to bring forth.
My ability to love
has grown exponentially.
I am still a
diamond in the rough but life is polishing me.
And yes, I am grateful.
“With the opening of the New Year, all the closed portals of limitations will be thrown open, and I shall move through them to vaster fields, where my worthwhile dreams of life will be fulfilled.” - Paramahansa Yogananda
I throw my own
arms open to let the vaster fields of my dreams
come into my life.
How amazing it is
to always have more to wish for, more to accomplish,
more to manifest.
Life is not static, and it is a great gift that it’s ever-changing and fluid.
I am incredibly grateful for all of this and so much more.
Thank you, Infinite Universe.
– DAY 3 –
“Soft, fluid and ever changing, a jellyfish surrenders to the ocean’s drifts and currents . . . by letting go, it gets to where it needs to go. We can learn a lesson from the jellyfish: Soften, let go, be patient and you will get where you need to go. Surrender is powerful.” - Emily Silva
I embrace surrender and letting go even though that goes against the tenaciousness in me. I soften my assured stance and trust that Spirit leads me. I need not fight against any currents. I am right where I need to be in every moment.
I am grateful for this wisdom. I am grateful for letting God and letting go.
– DAY 363 –
“So it is totally wrong to say that the practice of tolerance and practice of forgiveness are signs of weakness. Totally wrong. Hundred percent wrong. Thousand percent wrong. Forgiveness is a sign of strength.” - Dalai Lama
The strongest role models I know practice radical forgiveness, such as the Dalai Lama, for his exile from his homeland. May I learn from the great leaders of our world, and also the common amazing person who is able to forgive, even when there has been great harm done to them or their family.
I am grateful to
understand that forgiveness sets me free, and holding on to grievances binds
me. I forgive all who I feel need my forgiveness, and that includes myself.
And I forgive
again and again as needed.
I am gentle and loving and strong!
– DAY 365 –
“Everything is a gift. The degree to which we are awake to this truth is a measure of our gratefulness, and gratefulness is a measure of our aliveness.” - Br. David Steindl-Rast
I am grateful for the practice of
radical gratitude . . .
meaning that when tough times come,
or something goes seriously awry,
I look for the blessing in it. I look for what it is teaching me.
It may take time to find what is a
gift about a situation,
but it is always revealed.
And it is not always easy to be
thankful for trials and challenges,
but
it is possible. I stand strong with a grateful, open heart no matter what. And
I am thankful to be fully alive.
Paperback of Daily Gratitude Reflections Vol 2 – 5 winners!,
Paperback of Grace of Gratitude Journal – 5 winners!
1 comment:
Sounds wonderful
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