Finding gratitude within

I love Autumn. For years this time of the year always found me excited about Halloween and pumkins, carving them, eating the candy, and the Friends Together Halloween camp was always a favorite. Then there is Thanksgiving and Turkey and lots of cooking, all the while gearing up for the winter holidays... As the subtle changes in Florida take place with each season change, we really must go within to mark these changes of season. Here in Florida we have less outward appearances that the seasons have changed, yet if we listen carefully to our bodies we may notice a change in sleep patterns, a slowing down of the body and mind, a feeling of contemplation may begin to settle over us, and we may even notice a change in the outward focus of our relationships. For some even food preferences begin to shift.

Our society does not often teach us to pay attention to the wisdom of the body and apply it to our lives, yet I always feel better when I heed the internal clock and choose to listen intently. A daily practice of focussed Self Healing can turn this season change into your own spiritual retreat if you allow yourself to open the door to even greater awareness.

Expanding GRATITUDE can be very easy. We can easily look around our environment and see the people and things that we "have". We can have gratitude for our job, our lovers, our children, our friends. We can have gratitude for our homes, cars, boats, campers, even our furniture; I particularly love my bed! We can be thankful for our bank accounts, thankful for our animals, thankful for the world we live in... all of these things are wonderful and necessary in most of our lives. AND if you have been listening perhaps your heart has whispered to you as you have been reading these words that these things are external.

Many people stop at what they can see and forget to have gratitude for themselves in deeply profound and spiritual ways. What about being thankful for your strength of character or for your innate and fundamental ability to overcome tragedy? Can you allow yourself to even be thankful for the tragedy, for what you have learned from it, for how it has assisted you in becoming more truly YOU? When was the last time you stopped and became thankful for the absolute radiant light that your creator placed into every cell of your body, or your incredibly fascinating DNA that was hard coded to bring you through your life a better, deeper, more emotionally sound and balanced soul than when you started your Earthly journey?

This is a perfect time of year to take the spiritual practice of Gratitude within and create a deep inner communication with the exquisite beauty that lives within you... through this kind of daily practice you will begin to uncover things you never understood about yourself, depths of love and peace that have always been within you, that you never knew you could experience. It is time for us all to seek to know ourselves more intimately so that we can be in our world in a more certain, balanced, and positive manner. When we are truly grateful for who we are and what we stand for we can affect our world with even greater love.

Take 10 minutes a day and be grateful for your light, your peace, your inner strength, and the incredible love that was placed in your heart when you were first created... expand your view of yourself; and your world will expand and reach to meet you with even more joy, peace, and deeper levels of love than you ever knew possible.

Here is to you!