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Friday, July 5, 2013

Gratitude

I know that I am grateful for all that is in my life.  Some days I guess I guess I have less than the fully warm and fuzzy feeling around gratitude.

I get sucked in  let myself get pulled in by the negative emotions around a given moment.  Frustration, tension...I feel my shoulders tense up, my negative internal voice kicks in, "this shouldn't be happening."

I once learned the way to get out of this pattern is to change the thought pattern.  Think of something positive and the cycle will be broken.  I started to interrupt my moments of frustration to verbalize my gratitude for all the gifts in my life.  I haven't done that in a while, and I really should start up again.

When I do prayers with my son at bed time, we start with the Shemah, then we spend time asking G-d for the things we want and for the friends who need help (most of this is my right now, but my son hear's my voice and will learn in time).  At the end of prayer time, I spend time with my son thanking G-d.  We thank Him for all that we have in our lives, and we thank Him for the little things too, someone holding the door open for us, or the new recipe I found online.

I know, no matter how badly I felt the day went, at night time, I will spend that time with my son, speaking words of gratitude.

An amazing thing happens, in those moments, I truly feel G-d's presence, like He's listening in on us.  It's exactly like my son's book The Goodnight Sh'ma we received from PJlibrary:

I say the Shemah and I feel G-d's Light Shining on me all through the night.  

How do you express your gratitude?  Do you keep a gratitude journal (I have one of those too!)? Do you express it daily, weekly?



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