We are all so busy striving. We reach one goal and then we’re on to the next …. and the next. We have been taught since childhood that we must always be bettering ourselves, and so we did. Now we are told that we have to think of all the things we want to manifest into our lives.
There is little time to ‘stop & smell the roses’; ‘enjoy the fruits of our labour’; ‘to rest on our laurels’, or any of the other platitudes.
I have a Gratitude Jar on my desk. I put it there at the beginning of last year and my purpose was for me to think of the very small things that I am grateful for. Not the big stuff, like the house, the job, the family. I wanted it to remind me to focus on the other things, the things most of the time we don’t even notice.
Like:
- The bird singing outside my window, as I write this.
- The sound of the breeze as it rustles through the bamboo.
- The taste of the food as it hits my taste buds, the different colours of the food.
- The way my cuddly old dressing gown feels when I wear it, and how it makes me feel when I wear it.
- The exquisite smell of the roses from my garden, which I have put on my desk so that the perfume as it wafts over to me makes me smile.
I think you get my drift.
It has made me much more aware of what I have in my life rather than what I want ~ wanting just focuses on the lack in my life.
Then as I was writing this I received an invitation to join a gratitude group on Facebook. Now, not only do I have to notice things so that I can write in the group, I also get to read other peoples, which prompts me to think of even more things I am grateful for.
I don’t just sit all day smelling and listening. I still have a list of goals that I wish to achieve and a job list that gives me great satisfaction as I tick each of them when they’re done….. and I have been decluttering my house.
I have mentioned here before that I have had to overcome a very negative soundtrack that has run in my head for most of my life. This exercise of focusing on what I have to be grateful for has given me a new outlook and perspective on life.
