So remember a while back when I said I would do a weekly Spiritual Sunday? Well, I'm doing one this week. Yay!
I've been thinking a lot about gratitude these days. I've been doing a lot of pondering as well. More than I used to. I've been reading a lot of good books. I've been really on top of my personal and family scripture study as well. It's great. Anyhoo, one of the books I've been reading is called The Power by the lady who wrote the Secret. In it, she talks about the importance of our mind making things happen, you know "as a man thinketh, so is he..." I've always believed that thoughts are very powerful and are basically things we cannot see but are as tangible as any type of matter we can touch. She says that anytime we think sad or negative thoughts about anyone or anything, we bring those thoughts and energy upon ourselves. If we get a bill in the mail and we become stressed or upset over it, we will keep receiving more bills in the mail because. It's really a vicious cycle and honestly if you have the Spirit with you, you know that you can do better. Okay, so maybe this book is a bit "new age-y" but you take truth where you can find it. There is a lot more to this book than I am summarizing here but the crux of it really is GRATITUDE.
If we can be grateful every day for what we have e.g. our hands, our ears so that we can hear beautiful music, the people around us, our talents, our marriage, our children, and on and on, we attract those positive feelings to us and we create more positive experiences. Here's how she puts it:
Every good thought, every good word, every good emotion, and every act of kindness, is lifting the vibration of your being to new heights.
My other takeaway from it is love. We were meant to have an amazing life full of giving and receiving love. Our lives were not meant to be strings of "okay" days but rather one fabulous day after another. Why not? It is true, God gave us a wonderful life and I want to make the very very best of it! We need to replace fear with love. I actually tried this experiment the other day in stake conference where I was playing the harp for the Saturday evening session. I really wanted to do my best and was beginning to get a little bit of the stressies. Ya know, the nerves were coming in. I had been reading The Power though and realized how silly I was really being. I was taking in all this fear and if I played, I was about to play with fear and spread that fear to everyone. I changed my mind. I was going to play with love and share my love of the gospel through the hymns I played and spread my love through the whole congregation. I can honestly say it is THE BEST I have ever played in my life. What a wonderful tool for living! I smiled the whole way through and shared my love throughout the room. I can guarantee you, everyone felt it, and here's the funniest thing. Because I was sharing love instead of taking in and sharing fear, I (for the first time) didn't even care if people came up to congratulate me afterwards. It's not that I didn't care about them, I just didn't need to receive that love from people because I had enough love I was giving out to others. Takeaway, when you give love to others, you don't require love back from them. You will welcome it, but you don't need it to live. What a revelation! I'm serious. So....how can I remember this every single day?? Not easy but here's what I am learning:
1. I need to wake up every day and realize I was meant to have an amazing life full of joy and not a string of okay days. If I can open my eyes and think this every day, my days will be fabulous.
2. I need to share my love for my life and my joy in sharing my life with others so they can feel fabulous too!
3. I need to wake up each morning and thank the Lord for every great and wonderful thing in my life. I have been doing this. I am realizing how much I have to be grateful for and I am basking in the joy of this.
I look forward to sharing my gratitude, joy and love for the gospel and for my gift of life for the rest of my life!
