Lessons in Gratitude Day 861

Posted on November 21, 2013 by mtchamblee

Tonight I am grateful for living and walking in harmony, in flow, in step with my life. Some days I feel like I’m stumbling along, out of step, not synchronized with the proper rhythm, off balance. I don’t freak out about those days; we all have them. It’s a simple matter of remaining as calm and patient as I can while I recalibrate and get my bearings, tuning back in to the proper rhythm and adjusting myself accordingly til I’m back in the stream. My apologies if this sounds like cosmic gibberish, off the wall “woo-woo” stuff. I assure you that the 7 years I lived in California didn’t completely wash away my Midwestern sensibilities. If anything it deepened my understanding of who I am and clarified in part what the heck I am doing here on the planet right now.

The clearer I get about who I am, how I am meant to be and walk through this world, the more in sync I get, the more the world is opening up to me. As I get more closely aligned with the mystical life purpose that for so long I was doggedly pursuing,  I am watching the synchronicities beginning to slowly increase. I lived in a space of uncertainty for a long time during which I continually asked the universe, “What do you want from me? Why am I here? What’s next for me?” And for a long time I ignored the answer I was hearing because it didn’t make sense and I didn’t know how to respond to it. “What do you want?” (I hate when people, particularly God, answer a question with a question…) I would get so exasperated. “What do you mean what do I want? I want you to tell me what I need to do, what lessons I need to learn from all this bad stuff that is happening to me so things can start to get better. And by the way, I also need a job.” Gradually, through the years of struggle and of asking (begging) for direction, I slowly became aware of a small but budding understanding, a rumbling of awareness stirring deep inside me. And I knew the answer was coming.

The “answer” didn’t turn out to be a how-t0 manual that was going to tell me step by step how I was going to begin to walk out my life purpose. (Remember, as my teacher said to me some years ago, “Never let the how get in the way of a good what.”) The answer came in the form of letting me know who I am. As clear as a bell, a very short phrase that now guides my prayers and my thought process as I move forward. The specifics of the message are not what’s important; it’s more important that you know what your answer is for you.

I was talking to a good friend this morning who called me in a state of agitation. She’s been under tremendous pressure at work; all around her things appear to be unraveling. “I need to know how you had the courage to just walk away from that which was poisoning you,” she texted me, which prompted me to encourage her to call me. She is working in a very toxic environment that is slowly draining the life from her. She has tried to remain above the fray, doing her work diligently and with integrity, but undermined at nearly every turn by uncivil and unethical managers.

“I’ve got to get out of here,” she declared to me, “I don’t want to do this anymore.”
“What do you want?” I asked her in response.
“I want to get the hell away from here.”
“It’s not enough to want to get away from something, you have to know what you want to go toward. Running away from it still doesn’t give you a destination. You have to know what you want so that you have something that draws you in, not repels you away.”
By now she was calmly listening and taking this in.
“So, what do you want?” I repeated.
“I don’t know what I want to do. I do know it involves music. I come alive when I’m playing my instrument.”
“What if it’s not what you want to do, but more about how you want to be?”
“I want to be in harmony. I live in harmony.”
“That’s it.” I told her simply, “That is your mantra, your focus, your purpose. You don’t need to know the how right now. What you’ve gotten to is the what. ‘I live in harmony’ is a distillation of who you are at your core, it’s who you want to be. As you begin to open up to that, you’ll start to see opportunities that align with that.”

As I spoke to her, I felt an absolute sense of calm certainty that what I was telling her was true and that if she listened and could grasp what I was telling her that she was going to see some significant shifts in her life and her work. How could I be so certain? Because part of my calling and my purpose is to help other people clarify theirs. When I am in that flow, the world opens up.

I am grateful for walking out my purpose in everything I do as best I can. My friend doesn’t yet know what “living in harmony” is going to look like in practical terms on a daily basis; but even in the work she does in a highly technical field, her love of her music and her walking in harmony will transform that work and touch everything she does. It’s a beautiful concept and a beautiful thing to behold. I look forward to watching it unfold in her life and continue to unfold in mind, grateful as always for the unfolding. Which puts me in mind of one of my favorite lines in The Desiderata, “You are a child of the universe, no less than the trees and the stars; you have a right to be here. And whether or not it is clear to you, no doubt the universe is unfolding as it should.” And so it is.

Posted in Gratitude, Life Purpose | Leave a comment

Lessons in Gratitude Day 860

Posted on November 20, 2013 by mtchamblee

Tonight I am grateful for having had another good day. Nothing extraordinary happened: I had my usual spate of meetings and other activities, including kind of the ordinary aggravations. It has been a completely regular day. For the second day in a row I found myself in really awful traffic on my commute home, but unlike yesterday I didn’t battle staying awake for the duration of the trip. I listened to my audiobook–periodically talking back to the characters as they were about to do something ill-advised–and made it to the grocery store after a long but incident-free drive. These are simple things, but I do not take them for granted. There have been times when the snarled traffic would have raised my blood pressure a notch or two, and while I am still likely to have those days in front of me, today was not one of those. In the scheme of things, that’s good.

Gratitude has been my constant companion over these 800-plus days. As I am approaching day 900 and the ending of this public, daily gratitude practice, I am contemplating how I want to mark these last days. Part of me wants to declare that for the last 31 days (essentially the month of December) I will only write original posts (rather than spin the RNG wheel and pull from a randomly-selected previous post.) The realistic part of me that gets home exhausted many days, who has of late been frequently abandoned by any of her Muses, realizes that this might be a crazy challenge. And yet, part of me wants to mark these last days in some meaningful way. I have a little over a week to come up with something creative…or not. I would ask my legion of adoring readers to send me suggestions, only the once larger number of daily readers is now a mere handful, small but faithful. I’m not sure I would get many suggestions from my fans. The likeliest solution is that I will consult with  the Creative Source that resides in and around me and hope I can draw inspiration to sustain me over these remaining 40 days. At one level, it doesn’t matter: what is important is that I continue to express gratitude each day for the many blessings, from the sublime to the mundane, that touch my life moment-by-moment, day-by-day.

Tonight, I offer the simple gratitude for having worked hard today, offering thoughts, ideas, and wisdom, raising questions, addressing issues, connecting with staff. Laughing, enjoying human contact before climbing into my car, which carried me securely from point A to point B. Gratitude for the energy and alertness that allowed me to safely maneuver my way around, past, and behind hundreds of motorized vehicles of all sizes plodding down the highway. These are simple things. For the phone call with my son and later with my sister, the text messages from my daughter and ex-husband/friend that connected me to family. Grateful for the funds that allowed me to purchase a few necessities at the grocery store for dinner this evening and tomorrow and for spending a few moments with my four-legged roommate. These are simple things, and I am grateful for them each and all.

Tomorrow is another day, full of possibilities, as is the rest of today. Each moment is ripe with possibility. I hope I continue to recognize the beauty and aliveness that is present in and around me all the time. As I sit here writing this, hundreds of millions of people are expressing gratitude for the blessings in their lives. Just now, right at the same time as I am. How do I know this? I just do. How can they not be? I am reasonably convinced that I am not alone in recognizing and expressing gratitude for the abundance in my life, for the beauty that surrounds me. I know I am unique, but in that way I am in the company of many, many people, many beings with whom I am connected in this larger web of life. Giving thanks is wired in our DNA; it’s simply what we do, we can’t not do it. I know, it sound kind of “pie in the sky,” doesn’t it? And yet, I completely believe it to be true. Tonight I will go to sleep grateful and tomorrow I will likewise wake up grateful I will also wake up with sleep in my eyes, disoriented and tired, not ready to get up and face the world, anxious about my presentation, and all those things I am most days when I wake up. And, I will be grateful. And that is a beautiful thing.

Posted in Gratitude, Inspiration, Simple Blessings/Gratitude | Leave a comment

Lessons in Gratitude Day 859

Posted on November 19, 2013 by mtchamblee

Nearly two years ago I started writing a daily journal (I actually began writing the journal about six months after I started writing this blog.) I titled it, “Writing My Way to Clarity,” and have proceeded to write every day through 11 different books and hundreds, perhaps a few thousand pages. It’s not about writing every day, or a string of unbroken days of doing an activity. It has been about the action of using writing not simply as a form of expression but as a means of processing and distilling thoughts, ideas, plans, and strategies. It really has allowed me to clarify various things in my life in ways no other medium could. I continue to be grateful for the written word and how it has afforded me many opportunities to get to the heart of the matter irrespective of what that matter was.

During the difficulties that I faced a few years ago, I was in therapy on a bi-weekly and sometimes weekly basis. And while the opportunity to share the challenges that confronted me and receive feedback and guidance from a professional was very helpful, processing my thoughts and feelings through writing, and in particular expressing my gratitude for the many positive things that were happening all around me in the midst of the drama, significantly helped my healing process. I discovered as I looked through various entries in that first journal (begun in October 2011, but began as a daily practice on January 25, 2012) that I really have been writing my way our of foggy and uncompromising uncertainty toward a clearer sense of where I want to go, what I want to do, and some things that need to happen to get me there. Only within the past few months have I reached a point of clarity on a topic or two that I have been grappling with, struggling through for a number of years. I still don’t have absolute clarity on the particulars of what I’m discovering means or exactly how to “get there, ” but I’m much, much clearer on the what.

One of my teachers said to me, “Never let the ‘how’ get in the way of a good what.” His point was that it was important first to determine what we want to do, have, be without focusing on the “how” of going about getting it. We spend too much time focusing on how something is going to happen without first getting really clear about what it is we want to happen. Writing my way to clarity has been a way for me to begin defining the what. I strongly recommend it. I am grateful for all the words that have found their way into my journal over these two years, as well as the gratitude that has been expressed in this blog over roughly that same period. It has been and continues to be a blessing. For the power of the written word to clarify and express a number of important ideas and themes and for the opportunity to share these ideas with others I am most definitely grateful.

Posted in Gratitude, Writing | Leave a comment

Lessons in Gratitude Day 858

Posted on November 18, 2013 by mtchamblee

I worked late tonight–I got home a little before 9 p.m. It always takes me a while after I get home to settle myself down, circle around, think, etc. before I can sit down and write this blog. I am so tired my thinking is probably a bit fuzzy, but I will press on nonetheless. Tonight is a good night to spin the wheel, and so I did. I don’t have a poem or even a verse I can compose this evening, though it was a nice departure to be able to do so last week. Before I share from a vintage post, I do want to express gratitude once again from my family, in particular my sisters. Tonight my sister Ruth came by my house and took care of Honor for me. For the umpteenth week in a row I had an evening event that meant I could not come home to take my dog out for her evening walk. Over the past months two of my sisters have so wonderfully stepped in to help me with this important caretaking effort. They continue to show up and offer assistance in so many ways and I am so appreciative of knowing I have such reliable, loving people I can fall back on and to whom I can entrust my four-legged friend. It has been an immense relief to have been able to do so over these months.

Tonight I am sharing a previous post from August 2011, early in the chaos that was my life in 2011, the year the rug got pulled out from under me. I continue to be grateful for the ways I grew through the adversities I experienced during that year and months into 2012. As the old gospel song says, “My soul looks back in wonder at how I got over…” Enjoy this post from Day 57:

I am grateful this evening for synchronicity. The dictionary defines this as,“the simultaneous occurrence of events that appear significantly related but have no discernible causal connection.” I define it as, “when something really cool happens that’s connected to something else that just happened a little while ago.” Maybe the my definition is lacking a bit, but perhaps by sharing my example I can make a little better sense of it. The other night I was talking to my son about the concept of compassion. I was trying to explain to him that sometimes we can share a bit of wisdom or a particular truth with someone in such a way that instead of enlightening them, they can shut down, become defensive or resistant, or turn away from us. It wasn’t about what was said, it was about how it was said that made the difference. If someone is struggling with something–even if that something is of their own making–whatever wisdom I share with them must come from a place of compassion for where they are in their struggle; otherwise I potentially do more harm than good.

Then this evening, the topic of discussion at my meditation group was about–you guessed it, compassion. I appreciated the dharma talk, in which the meditation  teacher talked about the importance of compassion in how we approach the world. “Compassion,” she said, “is the only wise response to suffering. It turns difficulties into doors of liberation.”  I likewise gained insight from the small group discussion I had with a few of the people around me. I had talked briefly about the conversation I’d had with Jared about compassion, and another person shared some of her wisdom about how different generations hold different attitudes toward one another that sometimes leads to conflict. She was particularly speaking about issues between “millennials”and “boomers” in the workplace and how important it is for each group to hold the other in compassion. The millennials want to be heard and acknowledged for their skills in communications and technology and the boomers want to be honored for their wisdom and experience. One key to resolving issues between the generations was simply to help each see what the other needed to be valued and create spaces to enhance understanding. What she said made total sense to me when I thought back on some of the conflicts I’ve had with my kids,particularly as they’ve “come of age.”Another ah ha for me to consider as I interact with them.

Another member of our group talked about the importance of having compassion for oneself. Ding,ding! Big one for me. Earlier today I had been complaining to Jared how frustrated I’d been with myself today as I retraced some of my job searching steps to see what “the problem” was. What am I doing wrong? My resume must be really bad. Maybe I’ve lost my skills–if I ever really had any, that is. And on and on and on I went,mercilessly bludgeoning myself. Fortunately I don’t indulge in this often or for any great length of time before I get hold of myself and stop it. Today it was Jared reminding me to be kinder to myself. Oh yeah, like perhaps I should have more compassion for myself. I am definitely a work in progress when it comes to extending compassion to myself.

Synchronicity doesn’t just sort of happen;sometimes it shows up in direct response to a question I didn’t realize I’d asked. The message of compassion is one I clearly needed to hear multiple times from multiple people (including from myself). I’m grateful when the messages are this clear–the Universe was flashing a big red neon sign on this one. So while we’re at it Universe,there are a few other questions I have….

Posted in Uncategorized | Leave a comment

Lessons in Gratitude Day 857

Posted on November 17, 2013 by mtchamblee

I have been away from home most of the day. I began the day with a bit of a to-do-list, and somewhere along the way, I sort of lost it. I didn’t do anything of what I was going to do. And while this will have implications for later in the week, for the most part I don’t imagine I’ll suffer any lingering ill effects for not having crossed very many items off. Too often it’s easy to get caught in the trap of measuring “success” or “failure” by what I didn’t do rather than what I did. So while I didn’t accomplish a number of things I wrote on my weekend to-do list, I want to focus for a moment on what I actually did do.

I spent the day at my sister’s house. I was helping her with a house project that she needs to complete by the Thanksgiving holiday. I had planned to be over at her house today anyway, but went unusually early when she told me that she was out of coffee and asked if I could bring some over. As a fellow coffee drinker (I start my day each morning with a healthy dose of “quarter caff”–a concoction of decaffeinated coffee and half-caff), I knew there wasn’t a moment to lose. Grabbing Honor’s travel bag (with a water bowl, extra leash, refuse bags and travel “bed”) we swung past the Dunkin’ Donuts to grab a bag of coffee and some donut holes before heading over to save the day. Throughout the course of the day, my sister and I made major progress on her project. It was one of those clutter-clearing, dejunking, rearranging activities in which you have to create a bigger mess in order to tackle the primary issue. We were quite successful in creating the bigger mess, and I hope we made sufficient enough progress on the primary objective for my sister to feel good about what we accomplished. We capped it off with dinner, prepared by her daughter, before Honnie and I rode off into the sunset, our work for the day finished.

I am grateful to have been able to spend the day doing exactly what I did. I can recall many days when I was packing up my house in California when I felt overwhelmed at the enormity of the task. I undertook and completed the vast majority of the work by myself. It was long, difficult, and often discouraging. Wading through half-packed boxes and bags for trash, recycling, and giveaway items, at one point there was literally no room in the house (except perhaps for the bathrooms) where there wasn’t massive clutter everywhere. I’m still amazed, thinking back on it, at how much I was able to accomplish singlehandedly, with only my dog and several hours worth of audiobooks for company. It was good to be able to pitch in to help my sister. She’s certainly helped me out a great deal since I moved here last year, so it’s a pleasure to return the favor in whatever ways I can.

Nope, today didn’t go as I’d planned. But letting go of the plan and rolling with whatever the day brought worked as well. I still have a little bit of evening left, so perhaps I can get on with accomplishing a thing or two from my to-do list. If not, it will still have been a day well spent. And for that I am quite pleasantly grateful.

Posted in Gratitude, Simple Blessings/Gratitude | Leave a comment

Lessons in Gratitude Day 856

Posted on November 16, 2013 by mtchamblee
As I watch the cursor blinking,
I find myself distracted, thinking,
“What shall I write about today
When I can’t seem to think of what to say?”
It’s always about gratitude at the core
If I can express what I am grateful for.
Or, depending on how I feel,
I could perhaps just spin the wheel
And bring it down to simple chance
A recycled post, by happenstance.
Or I could write this post in rhyme
And save the spin for another time.
So I can share some simple gratitude:
Warmth and shelter, clothing, food.
Full-time employment, right livelihood.
On behalf of others, for the greater good.
A mind and body mostly strong and healthy
Financially stable, though not yet materially wealthy.
Family and friends who support and love me.
Mother earth below, Father sky above me.
Forgiveness that I offer as well as receive,
For the healing that comes to me as I believe.
Spiritual guidance directing the steps I take,
The words I speak, the decisions I make.
Purpose and vision are clarifying
Embracing a calling, I’m no longer denying.
Still learning how to be in the flow,
No longer so anxious about where it might go.
As my journey unfolds I know this at the start:
I’m navigating my way with a grateful heart.

© M. T. Chamblee, November 2013

Posted in Creativity, Gratitude, Simple Blessings/Gratitude | Leave a comment

Lessons in Gratitude Day 855

Posted on November 15, 2013 by mtchamblee

I know, it’s a broken record, but thank goodness it’s Friday. It has been another long, good week, and I am grateful. I am exhausted, and for the most part it is a good exhaustion, and now I can rest and relax a little bit this weekend before starting up all over again. I will make time for family and friends this weekend, as well as my usual alone time, cleaning house, grocery shopping and preparing myself for the week ahead.  This evening I spun the wheel, feeling a bit too tired mentally to write a completely new post. I am grateful as always to have written a store of good posts from which I can mine regularly. I invite you to enjoy this post from June of 2012 (Day 327):

Okay, the wind has totally gone out of my sails. My energy level is squat and I’ve a blog to write. Thank goodness I have gratitude. Because I can always find something to say about gratitude, right?

On days like today I am grateful for every moment I have on this planet with the people I love. Yes, every moment, even the ones when I want to throttle the people I love. We receive constant reminders that we ought to (ought: a word I don’t use very often) treasure the people in our lives who are most important to us. I received yet another today when I learned that a former student of mine had lost a grandparent near the end of May and a few weeks later a sibling was killed in an accident. I cannot imagine what it is like for people when they lose multiple members of their family in a short period of time. Losing my mother 17 years ago was a deeply significant experience to me. I cannot imagine if I’d had to face another loss of that magnitude around the same time. I have been fortunate that my dearest family and friends are for the most part still here on the planet with me, though I still feel the impact the loss of my Dad two years ago.

I have two children, two older sisters, two older brothers, and a younger sister. I treasure each of them. I don’t talk to my siblings nearly often enough, and I often lament that I live so far away from that I’m lucky to see them once per year. Still, I think of them nearly every day, pray for them often and try to reach out to them using various means as often as I can. Social networking and technology makes that a lot easier than it used to be: I Skype with one of my brothers every couple of weeks or so, swap quick comments and chat with some of my family on Facebook (and many of my nieces and nephews, which is really cool), and exchange text messages with various sibs at various times. All of that feels like too little sometimes and I find myself thinking about how I can make contact more often–not to ask for anything (which I feel like I’ve done too much of over the past year)–but to connect and check in and find out how things are going with and for them.

I’ve always been sort of a family-centric kind of person, and though time and distance have sometimes thwarted my interests in remaining in as close contact with my siblings as I’d like,I haven’t quite given up on making that happen. Meanwhile, I am grateful to have my daughter here for several weeks in between finishing up her undergraduate degree and heading for graduate school at the end of July. Although we haven’t maximized the experience–having her, my son, and me again under one roof–I am hoping that we create a few more opportunities to spend some time together doing fun and goofy things as well as having some meaningful family discussions about what we’re going to be doing next and where. My daughter has a pretty good handle on this already, but her input will still be valuable as we each think through what where we’re going to be by the end of the year.

Tomorrow is definitely not promised to any of us; we have only this moment…until the next moment, and perhaps a whole bunch of moments. In this moment, I choose to tell my daughter (who is sitting here in the room with me) that I love her and that I’m grateful for her being here. And heck, even though I’ll be picking up my son from work in an hour, I think I’ll text him now and tell him I love him too. (He’ll probably text back that he loves me too, even if he wonders what the heck has gotten into me!) I want them to know how much I love them and tell them as often as I can remember; and to remind myself of that, even when I’m angry at them. I am more grateful to have them in my life than I am about just about anything else. I look forward to continuing to find ways to show as well as tell the people I love just how important they are to me.

Posted in Family, Gratitude | Leave a comment

Lessons in Gratitude Day 854

Posted on November 14, 2013 by mtchamblee

Tonight’s post is from a guest blogger: my daughter, Michal.

Tonight, despite it being a stressful and physically painful week, I am grateful for many things. It is a good problem to have when I have multiple things I could choose to write about in this space, but today, I would like to focus on my father.

My relationship with my father has stretched across years, many different states, various platforms of communication, and difficult memories. It has not been easy growing up largely apart from my father, as many children of divorced parents know. But, as I have told him and will share with you, I am grateful for his continued role in my life, and I know others that have not been so fortunate. How blessed I am to have two parents who support me in many ways despite the physical distance between us.

I have always been a “mama’s girl” in the sense that my mother and I have always been very close – she primarily raised me and has dealt with me at both my best and worst. But lately I have come aware and grateful for the fact that I, in many ways, am much like my father. My eyes, my height, my introverted and reflective nature, my aptitude for music, my depth, my (at times) short fuse… the list goes on. The things that frustrate me about him are the same things that frustrate me about myself. For all the distance and years that could have separated us, we are often one and the same.

My father and I used to (and rarely still do) bicker – I have often resisted his notion that he knows better than I do or knows what’s best for me because I am young and don’t know much about the world. And, perhaps because I am older and (slightly) less headstrong, do I understand that he was and is always trying to do what is best for me. And, as I grow older and consider advice more humbly from both of my parents, I know more and more what is best for myself while also knowing that they have paved the way for me in so many ways.

Next Sunday, I leave for a much needed break to spend in St. Louis with my father, stepmom, and half brother, Jaden. The longheld tradition of me staying up and prepping the greens with my father has been standing for at least a decade, and shows no signs of ending. My father stands and I sit alongside him and we talk about life – my work, his work, my feelings, his feelings. It is beautiful and has changed – I once enjoyed apple cider during this tradition and now prefer beer or wine! And although I have not believed in Thanksgiving since learning more about its true history and significance, this time between my father and I is some of the most valuable I have been given.

I am grateful for my father in all of the truth he speaks through his words, his eyes, and his music. We have never had a “perfect” relationship – what is that, anyway? – but we do the best we can. And that is more than enough.

Posted in Children, Family, Gratitude, Love, Relationships | Leave a comment

Lessons in Gratitude Day 853

Posted on November 13, 2013 by mtchamblee

A funny thing happened on the way toward loving kindness: my heart opened up. I have been saying loving kindness meditation (metta), offering wishes of good will toward all beings ever since I first learned about the concept a few years ago while studying and attending the East Bay Meditation Center in Oakland, California. I learned to offer good wishes for myself, for friends, family, and loved ones, for people with whom I struggle (my “enemies”), and to all beings.  I learned this in greater detail from listening to lessons taught by the Buddhist monk and Western Buddhism leader Pema Chodron. Anyway, I’ve noticed that something interesting has happened over time: people who were in the “enemy” category have actually shifted from being enemies into the being “neutral” the category I use to refer to colleagues and acquaintances. There’s a kind of hierarchy in offering lovingkindness that I try to walk myself through on a regular basis.

What I believe was happening was that in the process of offering good wishes for people with whom I struggle, my own heart has shifted toward them to the point where I no longer consider them enemies. They’re certainly not friends, but neither are they enemies. And that for me, is been a very important shift. In the process of praying for them, my heart is actually opening toward people with whom I’ve had some past negative experiences. The degree of antagonism I’ve held for these people have varied widely in intensity and longevity. I’m not a big grudge holder; but while it’s one thing to not hold a grudge against someone, it’s another matter entirely to forgive them and to go out of my way to wish them well. It has been quite amazing to notice the shift in status for some of these people. Some of them remain firmly in the “enemies” column, so I still have a lot of work to do, but I am gratified by the awareness of some who have moved from “enemy” to “neutral.”

I am grateful for the lovingkindness meditation practice and for the process of walking through it. Essentially I am praying for each of those groups of people–myself, my loved ones, my acquaintance and “neutrals,” enemies, and all beings–earnestly asking for good things on their behalf. I offer modifications of the statements I learned from teachers at EBMC as well as Pema Chodron, repeating:

May they be filled with lovingkindness. (I sometimes add “and compassion” here)
May they be peaceful and happy.
May they be safe and protected from harm.
May they be healthy and strong in body, mind, and spirit.
May they live with joy, ease, and wellbeing.
May all of their sorrows, grief, and suffering be held with great compassion.
May their good fortune continue and grow.
May they learn to see the arising and passing of all things with equanimity and balance.
May it be so for us all!

I continue to learn and grow as I walk this path of well-wishing and forgiveness. As I’ve shared in this blog before, it benefits me to offer lovingkindness to everyone. It opens and expands my heart and my capacity for love, peace, generosity, and so many other attributes that I want to cultivate. My self interest is not what motivates me to do it, but it is a wonderful by-product of doing the right thing. Forgiveness, mercy, love are gifts for both the receiver as well as the bestower. There is no downside. I am grateful for the shifts I am making every day toward becoming a more loving human being. May I continue to deepen in wisdom, lovingkindness, and compassion. So be it!

Posted in Buddhist Teachings, Gratitude | Leave a comment

Lessons in Gratitude Day 852

Posted on November 12, 2013 by mtchamblee

I’m trying to ignore the sniffling and am acting like I am not coming down with something. Who has time for that? Certainly not me. I have been fortunate to have been able to will myself past those times I wasn’t feeling well and do whatever work, etc. needed to be done. I am counting on that same level of willpower to push me past this brief bout of whatever. I am grateful to have enjoyed reasonably good health and wellbeing throughout the vast majority of my life. I was born healthy and able-bodied. I’ve never broken a bone, been in a serious car or other accident, or suffered any significant illness. The only time I’ve spent a few days in the hospital was when I gave birth to my two children, and the only surgery I ever had was the cesarean section I had when I brought my daughter into the world.

I am keenly aware of how blessed I’ve been to have enjoyed good health. It is not something I take for granted. During my lovingkindness meditation I pray that I and others are healthy and strong in body, mind, and spirit. So as I sit here, spinning the wheel and hoping I can land on a good post (so far it hasn’t happened), I am hoping that I can rest my way through these minor sniffles and prevent them from becoming major ones. Tonight I am planning to rest early so I am sharing a post from autumn of 2011. I enjoyed rereading this as it reminds me that autumn is a time for turning inward and reflecting on the past year. I hope you enjoy it as well. Happy autumn!

Changes are in the wind. Autumn is fully here–it’s my favorite season. I’m not quite sure why. Lots of people don’t like this time of year. We “lose” the light and are headed into the long nights of winter. As I was driving in for my fourth and final cleanse class this evening, I watched the sun setting into a brilliant orange-red-rosy sky at 6:15. It was completely dark by 7. Next week we’ll fall back and it’ll be dark by 6. Early peoples feared that the sun had gone away and would not return. I think it must be bear energy in me that likes the fall and winter. It’s a time for quieting down, for turning inward in reflection. As an introvert,it’s in my nature to turn inward and reflect anyway, so this is a good time. And though I haven’t lived in a wintry environment for six years I used to relish the hushed quiet walking through a snowy landscape during the winter months,  particularly late at night when the moon reflected off the snow and it was almost as bright as day.

I am grateful for the change of seasons, and feel like there are changes in the air. I’ve been making daily expressions of gratitude for four months now. The time has flown by. As I am completing the nutritional cleanse I feel like I’ve rewarded my body by eating healthier foods and paying attention to it in new ways, and that I am also opening my spirit to say, “I’m ready for what’s next.” This has been another time of letting go and now letting come whatever wants to appear. It’s the feeling of being on a path, walking along and suddenly realizing, “Hey, I know I’m on this path. I have no idea where it’s taking me, and I’m alright with that.”

This has been quite a journey. Those of you who are faithful readers of the blog have come along with me. You have witnessed my struggles with sadness and depression, the first glimmers of turning a corner away from fear of uncertainty and failure, and the growing sense of determination to walk through everything without turning or running away from it. It hasn’t been easy, but over the course of one’s life we have all gone through things that aren’t easy. I’m grateful to have had resources–internal and external–to draw on over these months. Each has stood me in good stead and I continue to draw upon them in my current phase.

I have been doing a lot of reading, listening to audiobooks, and participating in retreats and classes about various elements of Buddhist philosophy. I am finding it helpful as I think about my ongoing journey. I am learning a lot about how to go through tough times with as much equanimity as possible. In many ways I feel like a child, hearing some things for the first time and approaching everything from a space of openness and curiosity. And, like a child, I still have much to learn about this life, about being comfortable with uncertainty, about walking by faith, not by sight, about a lot of things. Good thing I love learning.

I’m grateful to be where I am and experiencing what I am at this time. I am looking forward to the quieting,reflective time of autumn as one for more revelation and more learning. I am excited about the unfolding that is taking place. Thanks for joining me on this journey.

Posted in Gratitude, Health and Wellbeing | Leave a comment