Grateful Seeing: Day 3

Grateful Seeing, Day 3:

 –21 days of Gratitude: Awakening the Heart.

 “We each have the ability to shift our awareness to one of grateful seeing—noticing first what is working in our lives before dwelling on what we lack or desire but have not yet attained, or on our challenges or burdens,” states Angeles Arrien in her book, Living in Gratitude. 

I love this notion of grateful seeing. What would that look like in your life? What would that feel like?

In the middle of the night, I heard thoughts of discontent welling up in me. And I found myself remembering the question Jim Finely posed during the retreat a few weeks ago: Are we skimming over the surface of the depth of the life we are living?

Can “grateful seeing” allow me to live a richer, deeper, more connected life?

However, Angeles also tells us in her book that we must be honest and aware of our obstacles to the experience of gratitude itself: envy, greed, pride, anger, conditioned patterns of thought, lack of acceptance of self and others. We must acknowledge our feelings, and work through our obstacles, while continuing to practice and cultivate gratitude.

God gave you a gift of 86,400 seconds today. Have you used one today to say “thank you?’ – William A. Ward.

Brother David Steindl-Rast, a Benedictine monk, reminds us that “gratefulness is the inner gesture of giving meaning to our life by receiving life as a gift.”

 Gratitude Journal for Day 3

• Take few deeper breaths and relax.
• Open your heart in gratitude.
• List 5  things you are grateful for today.
• Close with a bow, or saying the word ‘Amen,’ or allowing a feeling of peace to wash over you.