My jar runneth over

I started my 2014 Gratitude Jar and already it’s packed – what goes on? A friend who is a spiritual teacher in California and I are doing a Prosperity Affirmation every day for 30 days by phone. I also have started saying an Abundance Prayer in lieu of my other mantras. And more than anything I’ve started noticing how much rocking gratitude I have in my life.

Little things like I haven’t had a manicure/pedicure in a long, long time and someone gave me a gift certificate today – out of the blue! Or that my heater problem went from a $200 to a $400 and was climbing to a $1450 problem, but right now I’m sitting in my heated house courtesy of my agent Andrew at Tommy Crane’s office who is trying to sort it out for me.

Tonight, I went to give my first of the year workshop to foster to adoptive parents under my Transracial Parenting company. Yay! I am stepping into my new career. And yet, I’m still able to pay the bills with my old career as I transition by virtue of getting new work last October that is sustaining me.

I’m definitely grooving on some good vibes here – so let me just say this about that – I’ve noticed (it happened today) that when workmen have come through my house, a few of them have stopped and copied down the quote I have on my wall:

Hardship prepares ordinary people for extraordinary lives. C.S. Lewis

I think about these men and what makes them stop and read this quote and what makes them go so far as to copy it down – I find this unusual behavior for men – but something in this quote says something to them as it did to me.

We all go through our own hardships and we all make our lives out of chaos and clarity.

I think about how our lives are fabricated from our thoughts and how if you think you are losing, you’ve already lost, and when you think you are winning, bingo, you are a winner. The first few days of the New Year, I was hard pressed to write anything for my gratitude jar and now I’ve put a cap on three grateful notes a day.

I’m leaving notes for myself to remind me of what I know to be true:

As I build my new company:
I helped build a $40 million company.

As I see other relationships flailing and struggling:
I have been in a profoundly loving and long-term marriage.

As I’ve spent moments by myself when I would have preferred not to:
I have been a good and sometimes great friend.

As I’ve missed my parents and grandparents:
I was a loving daughter and granddaughter.

As I have regretted deferring my dreams:
I became Tin’s mother at 50.

As I have learned to accept the loss of my hair:
I have fallen utterly in love with being bald!

I’m putting a cap on these because I could continue to list the hardships that have brought me grace, joy, and grit. Yes, indeed.

2 Responses to “My jar runneth over”

  1. Alice Says:

    Oh the magic of self-image psychology! 🙂

  2. Rachel Says:

    I wonder Alice with all of its magic how much garbage occupies our psyche – it’s like a continual need to flush the brain of all the dark spots that populate the image landscape.

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