Tag: gratitude

Fill Your Hope Tank

This morning, on a friend’s Facebook page, I read a heartfelt plea for a newsfeed devoid of a Donald Trump’s face. And while I, too, would love an opt-out button for that, it makes me wonder: is that her Algorithm? is she clicking on posts that generate more of that same face? That happens to me, a lot.

Our Algorithms, if you think about it, are mirrors of our thoughts — are they not? How we think, what we’re thinking about, often what we thought about yesterday or the day before. The omnipresent Big Brother feeds us more of the same until we are beyond sated, until we’re over-stimulated and over-whelmed, jacked up on fake dopamine, or banging on Read More Read More Read More like a sugared-up teenager at a carnival whack-a-mole.

And while I know (I know) it’s important that we keep informed about current events, that we pay attention to what’s happening in our world — I’m also concerned that we’re collectively helping to create what’s happening by focusing on what’s happening.

It’s called Manifesting. You can read about the positive effects of manifesting in popular books like The Secret (Rhonda Byrne) and Law of Attraction (Esther Hicks and Jerry Hicks).

And before you say hocus-pocus. Remember that prayer is also a form of manifesting.

“According to many spiritual teachings…consciousness creates our reality. What we desire is what we receive. If we are uncertain, we receive the energy of uncertainty. If we respond to crises with worry and negative, thinking, we increase the likelihood of a painful outcome.” — Yehuda Berg, The Power of Kabbalah

Yes, we are living in scary times. Yes, we need to pay attention to what’s going on. But in our attempts to pay attention to what we don’t want, are we losing sight of the things we DO want?

How can we ever hope to create a safe, peaceful, equitable world if our thoughts (and hearts) are always focused on threats, war, and inequalities?

We can all talk about what we don’t want — easily and profusely. Think about it, how many conversations have you had in the past six months about Donald Trump and his insane antics? About the circus that is our government, the atrocities happening to our immigrants, in Gaza, in Ukraine? About what’s happening to America, democracy, and our way of life?

Now, how many times have you talked about what makes a great leader? about the people on the ground doing good work on behalf of those who are suffering? about what you want the world to look like in the future? how many times have you laughed, planted something, created, danced?

All week long, activist and author Jessica Craven’s Chop Wood, Carry Water emails focus on what’s going on, the scary things happening in our government, and actions steps to take. But once a week, she posts Extra! Extra!, a glorious accounting of all of the good things that have happened lately.

I’ll be honest, by the time Extra! Extra! arrives on Sundays, I am usually stacking another shipment of canned beans in my basement and making sure my stun gun is fully charged. So to read all of the positive things that are happening, all of the forward steps we’re taking, all of the good news despite my Algorithm? My Hope tank fills right back up!

We all need a full Hope tank. So, here are 10 Ways to Fill Yours…

1. Go outside and breathe.
2. Listen to your favorite music and dance (or sing) (or both).
3. Go for a walk in the woods.
4. Have a playdate with a friend.
5. Get creative: make art, write something, bake, garden.
6. Watch a favorite movie.
7. Go to the library and find a book to read.
8. Take a day off social media/media/technology/work.
9. Keep a Gratitude Journal.
10. Change your Algorithm by reading good news; start here.

Let’s all MANIFEST the kind of world we want to be living in together!

Tags Affirmations, Creativity, Essay, gratitude, Jen Payne, Jessica Craven, law of attraction, manifestation, manifesting, power of positive thinking, Spirituality, writing in 2025

Creativity

Finding Gratitude

People often ask why I get up so early, and I will tell you this…in the morning, in between midnight and dawn, there is a beautiful quiet. It is filled with all of the potential of a new day with none of the worry or flutter. It is a time of immense peace.

This morning at 3, for example, I did my yoga outside, under veiled stars, listening to the waves in the Sound, the bell buoy chiming, the unseen visitor in the yard stepping through autumn leaves. It was a blessing.

The only drawback to being an early rise occurs on days like today, when news headlines arrive in my sightline hours before many of you wake for the day.

And so this morning, I had the distressing task of holding the news by myself, its weight bearing on my chest so much I could barely breathe, its implications making my entire body numb.

The only glimmer was an email sitting in my In Box from an organization called Grateful Living. I’ve read it and read it again, and feel, deep deep inside a sense of the direction I must go. Of where I must travel now to find my way past the despair and grief of this day and this time in history.

Perhaps it is too soon for you. Or perhaps this is just what you need to get you through today…

“The end of an election season does not return a fractured society to civility. There does not exist an on and off switch to suddenly pivot us in the right direction after we’ve come this far. The more something is destroyed the longer it takes to rebuild. And rebuilding is the work of our time. This is the work of living gratefully.

Well before this election season began, we lost sight of what is most sacred for our survival: our shared humanity. We seem to have forgotten our interdependence and, as a result, have divided ourselves up by teams, where there are winners and losers. What is happening in communities across the globe is contrary to gratefulness.

The practice of grateful living teaches us that in order to reach our fullest capabilities as humans, we need to prepare banquet tables large enough to include those with divergent perspectives and lived experiences so that we might better understand. Instead, we find ourselves huddled around bistro tables where we can only hear those closest to us — those who think and live like us, those who value what we value. How are we to repair our communities and build a world worthy of our descendants if we don’t seek understanding?

Fear is our greatest barrier to understanding because it separates us. It is a tool for distraction. We can no longer see clearly when we are terrified. We only see two paths: fight or flee. This is where gratitude goes to die because we can no longer perceive the abundant gifts life has to offer. Rather than being a people of possibility — a hopeful people — we become narrow, stingy, and impotent with scarcity guiding our hearts.

The pervasiveness of fear is not new to humanity or these times. Fear and tribalism have always been present in the human story, but gratefulness is resistance to fear. It moves us forward and helps us pursue more compassionate and inclusive communities of belonging, where every human can arrive welcomed and worthy rather than discarded….

The work ahead for all of us will not be easy, but it begins by opening our hearts rather than sealing them off out of fear and disappointment — this is our grateful resistance in a time of othering.”

This was written by Joe Primo, CEO, Grateful Living. You can read more of the essay and learn more about Grateful Living here.

For now, and this morning, and this week, month, year…please know that I love you and am grateful for your presence in my life.

Tags gratitude, Life, mental-health, mindfulness, Self Care

Writing

This Thanks Giving

This year — oh this year — has been challenging. The pandemic seeps into all of the nooks and crannies, as silent as air but as powerful as water. It brings with it immediate and obvious damage; it slowly wears away at what we thought bedrock; with time and time and time, it creates fissures and chasms.

But just like water, the pandemic also brings change. It washes away what was stagnant; reveals the things we were needing to see; carries with it a different way of moving around in this world. And in that way, creates new life…even when it seems to not.

The challenge, as we wait for this sickness to ebb, is to settle into the contradiction. To get comfortable with the unknowing, to sink our bare feet into the here and now, to consider what we might find hidden in the flotsam and jetsam.

And in that way, no matter, here on this day of Thanksgiving, we are — each of us — able to give thanks.

Thanks for struggle and challenge.
Thanks for breathe and the semblance of health.

Thanks for the clamor of the world still turning.
Thanks for the silence of stillness.

Thanks for what we let go.
and thanks for what we hold dear.

Happy Thanksgiving
with Love,