I'd never read manga (Japanese comic books) before. My nephew recently recommended two of them to me: I Had That Same Dream Again and I Want to Eat Your Pancreas. Both of them got me crying, and the second one had me sobbing at one point.
They both put me in touch with the preciousness of life and every - single - moment - we - have (including the challenging and painful ones).
Have you heard of gratitude journaling? Getting present to 1-to-3 things you're grateful for each day.
It's a powerful practice. And 3 a day is puny.
A couple weeks ago I went to the eye doctor and got my pupils dilated (as well as some really cool sunglasses 😎). My vision got so blurry!
One of my daily self-creation declarations is "I see beauty in everything." And yet, until I had my pupils dilated, I never even thought to thank my eyes for showing me the universe.
That day I began thanking my eyes (and my ears). Thank you for the gift of vision. Thank you for being healthy enough to show me colors and shapes and sites. Thank you for serving me so fully without ever any acknowledgment.
And thank you, God / Creator / Universe / Spirit / Mystery, for the profound gift of eyes and vision.
We're in a universe in which we can create gratitude for everything.
The question to ask isn't, "What are you grateful for?"
The question to ask is, "What are you willing to be grateful for?"
Gratitude, like Love, is not just a feeling - it's an act of the will. It isn't a noun - it's not something we have. It's a verb, it's something we do or something we be, intentionally.
Get in the driver's seat with gratitude. Don't wait for the feeling to fall into your lap by circumstance or conditioning.
Create gratitude. Generate gratitude. Be gratitude expressed.
How? Start with, "Thank you," and then get filling in the blank.
It's a muscle and it's a practice.
It's an access to experiencing the Divine that is, instead of getting caught up and blinded by our own arrogant judgments and stories of how things should be some other way.
The only thing between each of us and a life with more gratitude and love is our willingness to say, "Thank you."
You don't have to. And I invite you to.
Much Love. ❤️
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