To Have a Delightful Day

 Do you ever have a day where everything just goes right?  

Yeah, me neither... but yesterday I did!  

I woke up in the morning and thought, "Today is going to be delightful!" (No, this is not standard practice for me. It was new.)  But on this particular day it just popped into my head, and I set an intention.  Then I got up and got going and forgot about it.  

I somehow had more time than usual in the morning.  I even did a little reading before church, completely unheard of!  The speakers at church seemed unusually good, and I thoroughly enjoyed myself.  The rest of the day followed suit, with pleasant conversations with my husband, more fun reading, and a wonderful dinner at our son and his girlfriend's house, complete with more enjoyable conversation.  At the close of the day I sat on the bed and rehearsed to my husband all the wonderful things about the day (also not normal for me).  It was just the best day!  

There are not that many days I would like to live over again. Out of every 365 days in a year, there are almost none I would repeat, but this day was one of them.  Why is that?   Why this one?  What made it different?

As I pondered this question, I remembered that I woke up and set the intention for a delightful day.  I wondered if that had something to do with it.  

 According to Sara Weand, LPC, "When setting an intention, it's like laying the foundation for what you'd like to have, feel and experience versus just being a passive participant going through the motions.  Intentions provide you with the opportunity to actively participate in your life the way you want to live it."  

While I cannot control all the aspects of my day, I can control how I feel about it.  For example, I could have tuned out what was being said in church and called it a long, boring meeting.  I could have spent time scrolling on my phone instead of talking to my husband, etc. I could have not paid attention to all the good things in my day, and just looked at the bad instead.  

Even when unpleasant things do happen, we can choose how we look at them, which may not change the situation, but will definitely change how we feel, and how we feel is pretty much everything, isn't it?

Have you ever unintentionally set a negative intention?  Statements like, "It's going to be so stressful" or "It's going to be rough" or "I can't wait until it's over" are setting intentions.  

Of course it's going to be stressful if you decide it's going to be!  Of course it's going to be rough if you have already decided that's how it's going to be.  Of course it's going to be miserable if you can't wait until it's over!  

Try setting an intention that you want, and see what happens.  "It's going to be energizing", "It's going to be easy", and "I'm going to enjoy this experience" have a whole different feel about them.

Consider setting a positive intention for your day, or what's left of it.  I think you'll be surprised at your result!

The 24-hour Challenge

 Last week I attended a class by Julie Hawkes on "The Law of Increase".  It was a fabulous class on how being grateful increases your vibration, and brings you more abundance in life.

I am already a gratitude person, and have been for a long time.  Gratitude literally saved me years ago when I was going through a very hard experience.  It helped me shift my mind to see that life was not terrible, and that I should continue to live it.  It was the topic of one of the first blogs I ever wrote, back in 2014.  To this day I still list three new things I am grateful for every morning.  I love this habit!

What was different for me however, was that in this class we were taught to not only look for the good and be grateful for that, but also to look for what is hard and be grateful for that.  What?!  Be grateful for what is not good in my life?  That seems crazy!  

The other thing that was new was to express gratitude for what blessings are coming in the future, things not currently in my life.  Really?  

After the class I decided to try an experiment.  I decided that for the next 24 hours I would express gratitude for literally everything I could, including the hard, and what I don't yet have.  I intentionally focused my mind on this.  For example, when getting ready for bed that night, in my mind I expressed gratitude for my toothbrush, toothpaste, the running water, to have all my natural teeth, my floss, and the chapstick I put on when I was done.  You see how intense of gratitude I tried?  I literally focused on being grateful for everything at every moment I had free space in my brain.  

The next day I continued to focus my brain on gratitude at every chance.  I expressed gratitude for the pain behind my knee, my safe journey (before I started), my car, the paved roads, the speed limit, the lights, the cars around me, etc.  And on it went, from sun up to sun down.  Sounds exhausting, doesn't it?  I thought it would be too.  

The most surprising result was that not only did I not feel mentally exhausted, I felt exhilarated, light and energized.  It was a kind of "high", and so authentic, so hard to describe!

As it turns out,  gratitude has a very high vibration, at 540 MHz.  Being grateful falls on the same level as love - it is one of the highest vibrations you can be at.  The more time you spend in gratitude, the more your body's frequency raises and the healthier your body becomes.  Super cool!

I loved this experiment so much I have named it the 

RADICAL GRATITUDE 24-HOUR CHALLENGE.  

Try it! You are in for an amazing experience!

An Imperfect Heart ♥

 Have you ever seen a perfectly shaped heart rock?  This one seems pretty close! 

 My husband was out hiking with a friend and happened to notice it.  Because he knows I love heart-shaped rocks he stopped, picked it up, and put it in his pocket.  I was thrilled when I saw it!  I have a large collection of heart rocks of all sizes (see my blog post from July 31, 2022).  

It's interesting though, if you turn the heart in any other direction it doesn't actually look like a heart at all.  While it may look quite perfect at one angle, it looks quite imperfect from other angles.  

People are like that too.  Sometimes others seem perfect.  From our angle, their life seems perfect.  Their house, family and job seem perfect.  They seem to have everything going for them.   Trust me, it isn't.  

Just like the rock, there are other angles.  No one's life is perfect.  We are all imperfect hearts.  We all have hard things, and we all make mistakes.  

The crazy thing is, I understand why I AM not perfect, and I don't think anyone should expect me to be, and yet often I expect perfection from others.  

From my angle I can totally justify when I have a bad day, or handle a situation wrong, or say the wrong thing,  but when someone else does it I am surprised.  Sometimes I have a hard time giving them grace, allowing them to be imperfect.  Why is that?  I think it is just our nature.  We either think the other person is perfect, or we expect them to be perfect.  They aren't.  They can't be.  They are just like you and me, doing the best they can.  

My little heart rock currently sits on a shelf behind my kitchen sink.  I am using it as a reminder to accept and love others for who they are, and allow them to be imperfect just as I hope they will allow me to be.   

We are all doing the best we can. ♥

Learning to Love

 It's been a long journey.  Long.  And I'm not talking about my trip to Washington to attend a wedding this last weekend.

What I'm talking about is my mental journey to get to the place I have arrived at today.  You see, this wedding was for someone I dearly love and have known their whole life.  This wedding was not a "traditional" wedding, in the "old" way you would think of weddings.  This was a lesbian wedding.

If I'm being real and raw I was not all that comfortable with this idea not that long ago.  

I was totally fine with "you do your thing and I'll do mine"....up until the point where it hit close to home.  That's when it got hard.  

And so, part of my long road to this point has been about learning how to love each person...not for what they choose in life, but for who they are inside.  I'm ashamed to say that I have spent much of my life loving people conditionally.  That is, showing love and approval based on choices.  It took all seven of my children, as well as many other people that I love deeply to refine me and help me finally learn to love, really love people for who they are.  

It's not an easy thing to do.  

        Growth is hard.  

                                Movement is slow.  

                                                        Change is challenging.  

I have a story to tell, which will unfold gradually as I share my journey in the coming months.

For now I am just grateful that I could look into that bride's eyes, see her soul, and love her for the unbelievably beautiful person she has always been.  

I'm so grateful to have my heart opened in this lifetime, to let go of judgment and just love.  It feels so much better, and exactly what each of us deserves, to be seen and loved for who we are in our soul.