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65 Days of Gratitude Reboot

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I am so very grateful that I am learning how to recognize better approaches to self-care. I realized this morning that I began this blog in October 2024, a decade ago now. At that time, I had no idea how much growth spiritually, emotionally, and professionally I would experience these last 10 years. I remember during one of my coaching sessions around 10 years ago, I was introduced to this idea of a gratitude journal. This is when I began this blog as an outcome of that session. It is a little ironic that ten years later, I am back here again working to revisit this same idea, a gratitude reboot.  It is a way to reprogram and reboot your thinking, a mind shift if you will. I am working with a professional career coach to help me continue down a new path toward working on a few goals I have. I have experienced so much change in the last decade that I do think I need a year to really process all of these experiences, sit with the emotions of them all, reflect on what I have learned, and
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The Inner Journey Toward Peace

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 Over the last few weeks, I have felt an immense need to write and journal my thoughts regarding my inner journey and continuous work to heal and grow toward an improved life pursuing the path of peace. This spring immediately brought about an awareness of "peace" that comes in the midst of a great storm. It was perhaps the worst 2 weeks of my life. After a decade of struggling emotionally to restore relationships with my children walking through a decade of spiritual warfare, I naively believed it was finally over. After all, we had such a peaceful and wonderful Christmas holiday. I could feel my family finally coming together. And then like a thief in the night, the darkness nearly swallowed my family whole. A year previously, my estranged oldest son asked an honest question regarding our youngest son Nolan. Apparently somewhere along the way during the last decade, a very ugly and false idea was placed on his heart that the cause for the divorce was that Nolan was not his
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Rejoice ~ Locating joy in 2023!

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In 2019, I began the practice of annual reflection to improve my spiritual, physical, and mental health putting into practice daily journaling/gratitude morning meditation and the development of an annual vision board. In 2022, I spent the entire year studying the art of finding joy. Continuing with this study, I thought it would be important in 2023 to put daily work into learning how to choose joy or recognizing gifts presented to us by the universe daily and to focus on the act of rejoicing in small things. I can say that I am learning to practice joy through the act of rejoicing daily. While I don't always feel positive, I am learning practices and starting to see the fruit from these daily acts. Yes, life is going to be frustrating, people will let us down. At times circumstances are painful, and it is hard to keep going. I sometimes still fail at this, but I through God's help and learning to put my faith in a higher purpose, I am making progress. It is still a daily stru
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Faith as a Daily Exercise

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 When you are in a season of attack, as I have been,  we learn to have faith. Through seasons of attack and  experience, we develop a strong and unique testimony.  Be Still and Alert. Through stillness, we learn to listen. This is when God speaks to us and helps us process how we should react to events.  I have always loved hiking and nature. This is when I feel most at peace and where I learned to first listen to God. A recent series of events and people continue to remind  me that I need to stop, listen, and pay attention. A recent sermon online populated on my feed last week. The sermon was entitled "For Those Under Attack" and draws on 1st Peter.  In this message, the pastor quotes 1 Peter 5:9:  The devel is like a roaring lion. The roar is a warning and serves as a reminder that we will be alerted if an attack is coming. We must be alert and learn to listen. This morning my new pastor, Coleman, had no idea that I had been seeking God during the last week reading up on sp
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Healing Through Spiritual Growth

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Over the last decade, I have been working on healing myself spiritually and recently experienced a breakthrough. During my recovery journey, I have learned to deal with my unconscious pain from past traumas and family of origin and generational issues. For me, this has been a process that has taken a lot of time, with a focus on dealing with my needs first before helping others. I had to learn this as my family of origin tends to be very self-sacrificing and as a result cycles of abuse are a generational issue. This type of cycle is actually very common I have learned. I have learned to recognize toxic environments, abuse, advocate for my needs in a calm and professional way, and to detach when the other party chooses to continue toxic patterns.  Boundaries Attract Your Tribe:   When you use boundaries, you will attract the right people and teach people how to treat you. These are both internal and external boundaries.  Take Time to Improve the Relationship with Yourself: Be ok with le
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Finding Joy Revisiting 2021...

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I found joy in a few moments in 2021. This last year has been a struggle for many but I started the year searching for the meaning of joy. Joy is found through the living practice of gratitude. I found that starting my day with quiet time, focusing on gratitude, greatly aided in finding joy in everyday moments. When evaluating 2020, I realized I had focused primarily on work or the mind and wanted to shift the focus to spiritual wellness in 2021.  While I didn't reach all of my goals, I did make great gains in my spiritual and mental wellness column last year and continue to make great gains in all three targeted areas:  mind, body, and spirit.  This upcoming new year, I would like to place a greater emphasis on body wellness, which I have neglected. I could use more exercise, outdoor time, time away from my computer, less media, which I feel would help me focus on positive messaging. I would like to feel the characteristics of good health through improved flexibility, and strength
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Moving Beyond My Judgments and Biased Thinking

Often we become stuck in old patterns of thought. This is known as patterned thinking.  We tend to hold onto judgments, beliefs, messed-up principles based on prior experiences, and fail to recognize our unfulfilled needs. This type of thinking can hold us back. In order to move forward, we must confront problems honestly. People often fail to do this. They believe changing jobs, buying that new item, moving to a new geographical location of living, going to another country, changing partners, etc. will finally satisfy their needs. Changing physical circumstances doesn't address the true issue, which is the need to recognize and perhaps shift patterned thinking. What is the pattern causing your unhappiness? This requires us to address problems on a deeper level.  Imagine what would happen if each of us would examine ourselves personally and took responsibility for issues, less judgment, and recognition of our own biased thinking. I am including myself here. I am attempting to journ
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