November 2009

“You must have a room or a certain hour of the day or so where you do not know what was in the morning paper…a place where you can simply experience and bring forth what you are, and what you might be….At first you may find nothing’s happening…But if you have a sacred place and use it, take advantage of it, something will happen.”

–Joseph Campbell

A few weeks ago and then, again, a few days ago, something amazing happened. When I dug through my mail, doing my usual sorting, I found more than the junk and the inevitable bills, I stumbled across this new category of postal mail. I tore into these envelopes recklessly to get to something that is rare these days.I found real, live, personally hand-written notes from a friend and one of my daughters. As I read the words, I smiled and I was touched deeply.

We live in a fast paced, high tech world in which communication is almost instantanious and constant. This has come to be essential in the world of business, to be sure. The ease of instant messaging, texting or emailing is something even the most reluctant among us has adopted or at least warmed up to.

But, there is just something so personal about a hand written note in these days when electronic communication is the norm. It took extra time, thought and effort. It also took something I’m not rich in and that is patience. Yes, it does take a day or two for “snail mail” to deliver our thoughts to a real live mail box, rather than an electronic inbox. We have to wait for the delivery…but sometimes, waiting for it makes it more meaningful.

In coaching, we speak always to living a balanced life and reaching out to friends and family is part of that balance. We want to give our attention to the people in our lives, but sometimes we tend to make it hard, so we avoid it. But, hard is just a story, just an excuse to ignore our own need and the need of others to connect.

Why not grab some blank note cards the next time you’re at the store, get a great pen and some stamps (you can order these online!) and start a campaign, set an intention: I will reach out to one person I know and want to stay in touch with by personally written and mailed notes each week.

You can still use facebook to keep up, but for those of us with hundreds of facebook friends, that’s a great place to start for candidates. Among your friends, who would you like to add a special thought through a hand written note? There are only 52 weeks in the year! So many friends, so little time! Get goin’ and I promise you that you’ll enjoy the experience of writing the note just as much as the recipient will when the note is opened and read.

I write today from my bed, a place I have spent the last 10 days, more or less, trying to recover from a cold or the flu. The diagnosis doesn’t matter to me so much as the treatment, so we are treating the symptoms and I am recovering. I’m grateful that I am an otherwise healthy woman and have a strong biological defense system.

This sudden knock-out from my daily life, this transient health issue has reminded me of just how fragile life is, of how fine the line can be between fully functioning to flack on my back. In short, I’ve spent some of this time dwelling on all that I have to be grateful for.

It’s easy for us, as human beings, to lose sight of the miracles that surround us daily. We take so much of our lives for granted because we can. But what could our lives be if we practiced a little Gratitude?

I can tell you from personal experience that anything becomes possible from a place of gratitude. Choosing to see life in general or in any particular situation through the eyes of gratitude creates a profound internal shift. It’s a relief to know that there are forces at work on our behalf that are effortless.

Through my years of practicing Gratitude, I have come to understand that it is the small things, at least for me, for which I am most grateful. I am grateful for my breath, a simple autonomous and unconscious action on my part, that allows me to experience my human life. I don’t have to think about it, but without it, I would have no life.

This morning I felt gratitude at my first cup of coffee, which soothed my sore throat. I was also grateful that I enjoyed it in bed because my husband always brings it to me in bed

This grateful thought led me to how grateful I am to have my husband in my life, that he came to me in a time that I was broken down and broken hearted at the sudden loss of my now deceased spouse. I felt I could never love again, but I remember walking the dog down a familiar route and asking God to lift me up in Grace.

This brings me to connect with the deeper gratitude I have for Divine Grace, that invisible power that covers us all always and we cash in on in times of great need. We are always covered and we never have to pay a premium. Gratitude comes in all sizes and shapes, as unique as each one of us, and custom made for our unique life experiences. It’s hard to believe in this day and age, but its FREE. It’s ours for the taking if we just reach for it with a grateful heart. It is the salve that heals all wounds, all anger and all emotional upsets.

To say “thank you” is an act of surrender and that is where many of us, as humans, get caught up. We, in a manner of egoic insanity, want to labor under the story or illusion that we are in control of the contents of our lives. I assert that there is a difference between being responsible for our lives and the desire to be in control.

Practicing personal responsibility is about making choices, in advance, of ways we will think, speak and act in our lives. This could be considered a personal standard of operation and requires a certain degree of self-mastery and a regular practice of Gratitude.

The desire to control people and their thoughts, words or actions is usually generated from a regressed emotional age, an old wound in which we felt powerless and it is a chosen attitude. This belief that we can control others is an illusion and quite honestly, a manipulation because we can never really control another person’s thoughts, words or actions without their buy-in, their permission, of which they may have no conscious understanding. From an emotionally mature perspective, we understand that and have no desire or need to control others or be controlled by others.

A Grateful heart for all that we already have within us is the greatest antidote to control issues and self-pity that I know of. Begin your practice of creating a gratitude list daily. It only takes a few minutes, but they are mighty minutes.  Think of five things you can be grateful for right now and jot them down.