Posts Tagged ‘gratitude’
December 15, 2013
Yin (noun): In Chinese philosophy, the passive female principle of the universe, characterized as female and sustaining and associated with earth, dark, and cold.
Yang (noun): Lori Anne, author of this post.

Lori Anne Yang
Literally overnight, my friend, Lori Anne Yang, experienced a profound awakening that delivered her from the darkness of depression into the light of joyous gratitude and limitless love. It’s a wonderful reminder that changing your perspective can instantaneously change everything for the better. Thank you, Lori, for sharing your beautiful story.
LORI ANNE YANG’S LIFE-ALTERING VISION
Around the time I was 35 years old, after a devastating period in my life of prolonged sorrow, I had a profound experience of rebirth. I know it is cliché to say it is always darkest before the dawn, but for me it truly was.
It was a very black night, in the midst of a painful divorce and a life in complete upheaval and pain. I believed all choices in front of me led to even more pain for myself and everyone around me. I was at a point where choosing not to live felt like a very real solution to my problems. The thought of having no future became more comforting to me than any future I could foresee. I cried myself to sleep next to all the untouched pharmaceutical bottles I had gathered on the nightstand next to me.
I will never know if I would have gone through with ending my life that night, or if it was just a step I was taking in testing this option . . . moving closer to it to see if it still felt like the answer. I will never know because I (more…)
Tags:awakening, depression, dream, enlightened, gratitude, hope, joy, rebirth, renewal
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November 9, 2013

Dan Millman
In his essay for Inspire Me Today, author Dan Millman shared a profound experience that continues to help him maintain his perspective during difficult times. It’s a beautiful lesson worth sharing.
Click here to read an excerpt from the story Dan told me for my book, Sixty Seconds: One Moment Changes Everything.
YOUR DISCONTENT IS THE FIRST STEP TOWARD AWAKENING
In our day-to-day lives, most of our attention tends to focus on the realities of the conventional world: our relationships, perhaps raising children, going to school or work, addressing issues in the areas of health and finances.
At the same time, we each experience, from time to time or even persistently, that whispered voice of our heart or higher self, reminding us and calling us to look beyond the conventional world to a higher or transcendent reality.
Sometimes we experience a sudden wake-up call—a loss or change that forces us to consider what life is really about and what’s truly important. It shakes (more…)
Tags:discontentment, grace, gratitude, peace, perspective, surrender, Truth, unity
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November 1, 2013

On my way to an appointment this morning, I was thinking about how most of us have escaped serious injury or death at least once in our lives.
• One friend told me that her car spun around on a busy L.A. highway; she braced herself for impact and thought, This is it, but when she opened her eyes, all the cars behind her had miraculously stopped in time.
• Another friend of mine was standing in his yard when he was shot by (more…)
Tags:attitude, gifts, gratitude
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October 11, 2013

I’m reading the book, Hope Conquers All: Inspiring Stories of Love and Healing from CaringBridge, by Sona Mehring, the founder of CaringBridge. In the stories I’ve read so far, there’s a recurring theme. Here are just two examples:
Paula Coulter, who sustained serious injuries when her family’s van plunged off a collapsing freeway bridge, said, “Yes, I’m smiling. I’m here. I’m alive. But I would still give the world to have my old life back.” Mindy Fast, who was diagnosed with multiple myeloma twelve years earlier, said, “Once upon a time I had a (more…)
Tags:appreciation, gratitude, joy, love, take for ganted
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April 6, 2013

In the book, The Practice of the Presence of God, the priest who interviewed Brother Lawrence, a kitchen worker in a seventeenth-century Paris monastery, recorded that Brother Lawrence told him:
That we ought not to be weary of doing little things for the love of God, who regards not the greatness of the work, but the love with which it is performed.
What a powerful statement. Few of us will achieve greatness in the eyes of the world, but all of us can achieve greatness in the eyes of God simply by performing your duties with pure intention, a spirit of service and a loving heart.
If it falls your lot to be a street sweeper, go on out and sweep streets like (more…)
Tags:Brother Lawrence, devotion, gratitude, love, love of God, service
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July 20, 2012

Sunset in Encinitas (photo by Christopher Gray)
I just got back from standing at the ocean’s edge as darkness fell, watching and listening as the metal-blue waves rolled in toward my feet. And I thought, “All is well. The people I love are happy and healthy. I am doing the work I feel called to do. I have enough to eat and a place to live. I could not be more blessed.”
Standing there, gazing at the ocean, I also knew that the day would come when I would give everything I own, perhaps even my life, to (more…)
Tags:contentment, gratitude, joy, peace
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January 28, 2012

Is this statement true:
You don’t know what you’ve got till it’s gone.
If it is, it doesn’t have to be. You can learn to consciously live with gratitude for what you have been blessed with. Starting right now.
Name three good things in your life:
• A prized possession
• Someone you love
• An aspect of (more…)
Tags:appreciation, blessings, gratitude
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September 1, 2011

Yesterday at the gym, I saw a man with a USMC tattoo. I approached him and asked him a question. Here was our dialogue:
ME: “Were you in the Marine Corps?”
HIM: “Yes, I still am.”
ME: “Thank you for serving our country.”
HIM: “Thank you.”
ME: “It amazes (more…)
Tags:army, gratitude, Marines, military, navy, serving our country, soldiers, thank you
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August 3, 2011

By definition, the circle of life demands that we experience the full range of what this life has to offer. Adversity is an integral part of the natural order of things. No one escapes its bittersweet embrace.
To round itself out, life calls not for perfection but for completeness; and for this the “thorn in the flesh” is needed, the suffering of defects without which there is no progress and no ascent.
Carl Jung
While you cannot prevent adversity from knocking on your door, you can prepare for its arrival by (more…)
Tags:adversity, difficulties, gratitude, hardships, setbacks
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July 22, 2011

In the chess game of life, you are faced with a particular universe of choices at any given moment.
Life is like a game of cards. The hand that is dealt you represents determinism; the way you play it is free will.
Jawaharlal Nehru
With every move, that universe is reconfigured, creating new possibilities and eliminating old ones.
Every turn in your life, every time you decide, you become (more…)
Tags:acceptance, attachment, choice, determinism, free will, gratitude, outcomes, resistance, results
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June 5, 2011
When you are determined to find blessings everywhere, blessings are just as determined to find you.
The unthankful heart . . . discovers no mercies; but let the thankful heart sweep through the day and, as the magnet finds the iron, so it will find, in every hour, some heavenly blessings!
Henry Ward Beecher
While you are grateful no matter what comes to you, you continue to ask (more…)
Tags:blessings, grateful, gratitude, joy
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June 3, 2011
The law of attraction dictates that consistently and genuinely expressing thankfulness will magnetically attract even more people, things, and situations to be thankful for.
The first step in creating abundance is to receive what you already have.
Heather Madder
Gratitude inevitably produces ever more joy just as constant complaining generates ever more misery.
Being ungrateful for (more…)
Tags:celebration, gratitude, joy, law of attraction, thankful
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