Example of gratitude and abundance
Sandra Dodd
I'm tired. Holly has gone out for the evening. Marty has gone to bed because he works at 4:30 a.m. Keith is busy. I thought…. I'd like to just go to sleep.
Then I looked up and there's food to be put away, and the counter is all full of dinner.
At first I felt whiney, "why me?" and kind of "DAMN it, I'm tired."
Then I thought…
I'm glad we have food. i LOVE that pan I made the sauce in. I got it for saving stamps at the grocery store. It's heavy stainless steell, and beautifully shaped.
We have containers to make small meals, and I can mix the sauce (which I made in the morning and slow-simmered most of the afternoon) with spaghetti in several little containers, and someone from my family will be glad to find it at some point this weekend, or maybe Keith will save one to take to work for lunch on Monday.
I'm glad we have a refrigerator, and that people in my family not only are willing to eat leftovers, they're glad to find there's some left of something they liked the first time.
We have a dishwasher. That's really wonderful. If all I have to do is rinse dishes and fill it up, that's not much work at all.
I've been listening to World War Z. Marty says some of his favorite stories aren't in the abridged audio book, but that he's heard the audio and it's good.
So I'm going to put World War Z to play on the computer, and clean up the kitchen I'm glad to have, for the family I love.
Sandra
Then I looked up and there's food to be put away, and the counter is all full of dinner.
At first I felt whiney, "why me?" and kind of "DAMN it, I'm tired."
Then I thought…
I'm glad we have food. i LOVE that pan I made the sauce in. I got it for saving stamps at the grocery store. It's heavy stainless steell, and beautifully shaped.
We have containers to make small meals, and I can mix the sauce (which I made in the morning and slow-simmered most of the afternoon) with spaghetti in several little containers, and someone from my family will be glad to find it at some point this weekend, or maybe Keith will save one to take to work for lunch on Monday.
I'm glad we have a refrigerator, and that people in my family not only are willing to eat leftovers, they're glad to find there's some left of something they liked the first time.
We have a dishwasher. That's really wonderful. If all I have to do is rinse dishes and fill it up, that's not much work at all.
I've been listening to World War Z. Marty says some of his favorite stories aren't in the abridged audio book, but that he's heard the audio and it's good.
So I'm going to put World War Z to play on the computer, and clean up the kitchen I'm glad to have, for the family I love.
Sandra
chris ester
Thank you for sharing your gratitude and abundance in such an open way.
I find it enriching and fulfilling to seek gratitude instead of being
whiny, which makes me tired and unpleasant to anyone, including me.
I started this habit of being happy when I was a social worker. I realized
that I would kill myself slowly if I didn't look for the happiness in
situations. There is always a surfeit of unhappiness, the real skill is
finding the bright side.
Chris
I find it enriching and fulfilling to seek gratitude instead of being
whiny, which makes me tired and unpleasant to anyone, including me.
I started this habit of being happy when I was a social worker. I realized
that I would kill myself slowly if I didn't look for the happiness in
situations. There is always a surfeit of unhappiness, the real skill is
finding the bright side.
Chris
On Fri, Aug 10, 2012 at 8:58 PM, Sandra Dodd <Sandra@...> wrote:
> I'm tired. Holly has gone out for the evening. Marty has gone to bed
> because he works at 4:30 a.m. Keith is busy. I thought�. I'd like to just
> go to sleep.
>
> Then I looked up and there's food to be put away, and the counter is all
> full of dinner.
>
> At first I felt whiney, "why me?" and kind of "DAMN it, I'm tired."
>
> Then I thought�
> I'm glad we have food. i LOVE that pan I made the sauce in. I got it for
> saving stamps at the grocery store. It's heavy stainless steell, and
> beautifully shaped.
>
> We have containers to make small meals, and I can mix the sauce (which I
> made in the morning and slow-simmered most of the afternoon) with spaghetti
> in several little containers, and someone from my family will be glad to
> find it at some point this weekend, or maybe Keith will save one to take to
> work for lunch on Monday.
>
> I'm glad we have a refrigerator, and that people in my family not only are
> willing to eat leftovers, they're glad to find there's some left of
> something they liked the first time.
>
> We have a dishwasher. That's really wonderful. If all I have to do is
> rinse dishes and fill it up, that's not much work at all.
>
> I've been listening to World War Z. Marty says some of his favorite
> stories aren't in the abridged audio book, but that he's heard the audio
> and it's good.
>
> So I'm going to put World War Z to play on the computer, and clean up the
> kitchen I'm glad to have, for the family I love.
>
> Sandra
>
> ------------------------------------
>
> Yahoo! Groups Links
>
>
>
>
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dana_burdick
I have this diet program on the computer that allows you to enter your moods: Happy, Very Happy, Sad, Peaceful, Angry, Hungry, Tired and so on. The moods are translated into a smiley face or not so smiley face depending on what you entered. The faces are displayed on a calendar so you can track your moods along with the foods you ate on any given day. It's pretty cool and has been fairly helpful in figuring out how many calories I really need and what foods work best to keep my mood stable. What I didn't expect to find though is that my happiness is really a choice. If I have had a few happy days in a row and there sitting right in front of me are cute little happy faces :) :) :), I am reluctant to make a sad or angry face. I sit there trying to tweak the options to get the face I want and maybe not the face that matches my initial mood. My mood actually morphs to match the face I really want and I walk away feeling happier than when I started. Now, even without the program, I sometimes go through options in my head and ask myself, am I really hopelessly sad, say, or can I just choose to be happy instead. It also helped me to separate tiredness or other small discomforts from my feeling of happiness. I learned that just because I'm tired doesn't mean I have to be grumpy, too. It's amazing how I can turn entire days around. If I had not seen it so graphically, I wouldn't have believed that it is possible to choose happiness so easily.
-Dana
-Dana
Sandra Dodd
This decade, the parenting world is FILLED with parents�. oh wait. The quote:
-=-It's pretty cool and has been fairly helpful in figuring out how many calories I really need and what foods work best to keep my mood stable. What I didn't expect to find though is that my happiness is really a choice.-=-
The parenting world is full these days of parents thinking they can stabilize their children's moods, and ensure their creativity, by controlling their diets.
One of the talks I gave in Sacramento last weekend was "Happiness Inside and Out." There might be a recording for sale before long, and I'll announce it here if so.
In that I told the story of my dad having said to me, when I was in my mid-teens, that I just needed to decide to be happy. And I thought he was really an idiot to think such a thing. But it's been decades now since I knew it, bone deep, to be a simple, plain truth. I wish instead of just crying and grunting (or whatever I did) I had taken a breath and asked "like how?" Because he could have told me.
My dad was almost always smiling, even when he was in his late 40's and early 50's and nearly completely crippled with arthritis. He was happy and smiling even when living with my mom, and I know she could be pretty harsh and unwelcoming all kinds of ways. His smiles are some of the best memories of my childhood. He knew how to be happy, and was wanting to share that with me, and I wasn't ready to hear it.
-=-I sit there trying to tweak the options to get the face I want and maybe not the face that matches my initial mood. My mood actually morphs to match the face I really want and I walk away feeling happier than when I started.-=-
When people make choices, and then beter choices, and bettter-better choices over weeks and months, the old bad choices can become almost impossible to reach anymore, they're so far beyond that place. When I'm deciding how to be with Holly (we had a disagreement yesterday) I'm thinking of ways to stop the argument, not ways to prolong or escalate it. I'm thinking of things to say to make us both feel at peace, not ways to make me right and her wrong.
When she was ten, and not twenty, and I was trying to affect her mood or behavior, I didn't think of punishments, I thought of encouragement.
When my kids were little, though, and my knowledge and options were smaller, my better choices weren't nearly as good as they were years later, when I was accustomed to he incrementally-increased "better."
This is beautiful: " It also helped me to separate tiredness or other small discomforts from my feeling of happiness. I learned that just because I'm tired doesn't mean I have to be grumpy, too. It's amazing how I can turn entire days around."
My leg was hurting pretty badly the other day, and I used it as a partial reason to have been short with Keith. He had had a REALLY long bad day at work, though, and my leg pain was minor to that, so I took Tylenol and paid more sweet attention to Keith, and we were all happier.
Sandra
[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]
-=-It's pretty cool and has been fairly helpful in figuring out how many calories I really need and what foods work best to keep my mood stable. What I didn't expect to find though is that my happiness is really a choice.-=-
The parenting world is full these days of parents thinking they can stabilize their children's moods, and ensure their creativity, by controlling their diets.
One of the talks I gave in Sacramento last weekend was "Happiness Inside and Out." There might be a recording for sale before long, and I'll announce it here if so.
In that I told the story of my dad having said to me, when I was in my mid-teens, that I just needed to decide to be happy. And I thought he was really an idiot to think such a thing. But it's been decades now since I knew it, bone deep, to be a simple, plain truth. I wish instead of just crying and grunting (or whatever I did) I had taken a breath and asked "like how?" Because he could have told me.
My dad was almost always smiling, even when he was in his late 40's and early 50's and nearly completely crippled with arthritis. He was happy and smiling even when living with my mom, and I know she could be pretty harsh and unwelcoming all kinds of ways. His smiles are some of the best memories of my childhood. He knew how to be happy, and was wanting to share that with me, and I wasn't ready to hear it.
-=-I sit there trying to tweak the options to get the face I want and maybe not the face that matches my initial mood. My mood actually morphs to match the face I really want and I walk away feeling happier than when I started.-=-
When people make choices, and then beter choices, and bettter-better choices over weeks and months, the old bad choices can become almost impossible to reach anymore, they're so far beyond that place. When I'm deciding how to be with Holly (we had a disagreement yesterday) I'm thinking of ways to stop the argument, not ways to prolong or escalate it. I'm thinking of things to say to make us both feel at peace, not ways to make me right and her wrong.
When she was ten, and not twenty, and I was trying to affect her mood or behavior, I didn't think of punishments, I thought of encouragement.
When my kids were little, though, and my knowledge and options were smaller, my better choices weren't nearly as good as they were years later, when I was accustomed to he incrementally-increased "better."
This is beautiful: " It also helped me to separate tiredness or other small discomforts from my feeling of happiness. I learned that just because I'm tired doesn't mean I have to be grumpy, too. It's amazing how I can turn entire days around."
My leg was hurting pretty badly the other day, and I used it as a partial reason to have been short with Keith. He had had a REALLY long bad day at work, though, and my leg pain was minor to that, so I took Tylenol and paid more sweet attention to Keith, and we were all happier.
Sandra
[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]