The DAILY SPARK Blog

GRATITUDE’S SECRET

“Gratitude unlocks the fullness of life.  It turns what we have into enough, and more.  It turns denial into acceptance, chaos to order, confusion to clarity.  It can turn a meal into a feast, a house into a home, a stranger into a friend.  Gratitude makes sense of our past, brings peace for today and creates a vision for tomorrow.”

Quote by Melody Beattie

Born Melody Vaillancourt in Minneapolis, Beattie graduated from high school with honors. She began drinking at age 12, was a full-blown alcoholic by age 13, and a drug addict by 18.

Beattie authored 18 other books including Codependent No More, Beyond Codependency, The Language of Letting Go and Make Miracles in Forty Days: Turning What You Have into What You Want, published in 2010. Several of her books have been published in other languages.

 

REFLECTION:

  • Make a gratitude list.
  • Looking through the lens of gratitude, has some memory shifted to acceptance? 
  • How can you embrace gratitude to create more order, clarity… peace?

PEACE

PEACE IS THIS MOMENT WITHOUT JUDGMENT

Do you think peace requires an end to war? Or tigers eating only vegetables? Does peace require an absence from your boss, your spouse, yourself?… Do you think peace will come some other place than here?  Some other time than Now? In some other heart than yours?

Peace is this moment without judgment.  That is all.  This moment in the Heart-space where everything that is is welcome.  Peace is this moment without thinking that it should be some other way, that you should feel some other thing, that your life should unfold according to your plans.

Peace is this moment without judgment, this moment in the Heart-space where everything that is is welcome.

Poem by Dorothy Hunt    Info about Dorothy…  https://spartacus-educational.com/JFKhuntD.htm

REFLECTION:

  • As many begin to gather with family and friends for the Holidays, consider creating a space of peace… moments without judgment. 
  • How would you days be if you could release that “it should be some other way … that you should feel something else?”
  • What if your life is unfolding exactly according to plan?
  • Can you create Heart-space today and the days going forward to offer peace without judgment.
  • HAPPY HOLLIDAYS!!  Enjoy being with yourself and others in the coming days.

THE MIND

“My mind is my main problem almost all the time. I wish I could leave  it in the fridge when I go out but it likes to come with me.”  

Quote by Anne Lamott

Anne Lamott  is an American novelist and non-fiction writer. She is also a progressive political activist, public speaker, and writing teacher.  Her nonfiction works are largely autobiographical. Lamott’s writings, marked by their self-deprecating humor and openness, cover such subjects as alcoholism, single- motherhood, depression, and Christianity.  Some of her best selling books include: Help, Thanks, Wow; Traveling Mercies; and Bird By Bird.

REFLECTION:

  • What trouble has your mind gotten you into?
  • Perhaps you can take the “story in your head” and ask a few questions*
  • Question 1: Is it true? …
  • Question 2: Can you absolutely know it’s true? …
  • Question 3: How do you react—what happens—when you believe that thought? …
  • Question 4: Who would you be without the thought?            (Source of Questions is THE WORK by Byron  Katie)