Category Archives: culture

I Am Grateful For My Spiritual Journey To Health And Wellness

I am nearing four and one-half years of health after multiple cancers and surgeries in 2017. I am grateful that I am still healthy, but never do I take my present health for granted. The source stimulating these postings is my joy with life, and my sincere appreciation and happiness to have time to “pay it forward” to others while here.

As many people do, I read and ask questions, and share with others to learn about healing and health and wellness. I can tell you from experience that there is a lot to learn and practice to maintain health. Sometimes I stray from my devotion to a healthier lifestyle, better eating, mindful practices with toxins and GMOs in our world, and Western and Eastern medical beliefs. But, when my CT scans and labs remind me that my body chemistry is changing, I jump back into better practices and pray.

People ask me what am I doing to stay so healthy? I tell them what I am learning, but many people do the same things I do, and much more, and, sadly, many people continue to die around me which makes me so sad, and gives me a feeling of survivor’s guilt. I want to do more to help others so I keep posting happy ideas, and peaceful thoughts. Also, I post joyful events like playing with your pets, and enjoyable moments with family and friends or beautiful trips deep into nature.

This month I am pulling all of my postings, videos, blogs, tweets, and Instagrams into more of a common “digital media” composite so that I may share what I believe and what I have learned thus far. If this is helpful to you, please let me know. If you would like more from me, please let me know.

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Gratitude Is An Emotion Causing One To Give

Currently I have so many people around me who are seriously ill: a dear friend with blood cancer, and large masses throughout all the organs in her chest; a relative about to have a permanent peg feeding tube (never to eat or drink by mouth again); a friend about to have a double mastectomy; a relative needing to repair a cleft palate again so he may eat normally; and so it goes with so many various and differing health problems. My reaction to each of these individuals is “what might I do to help you?” “What might I say to provide support and encouragement to you?” Personally, I am not sure that I have the proper background and knowledge to offer help, yet they contact me regularly so perhaps my “listening” to their fears and anxieties is of some assistance.

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Gratitude, The Brain, Morality, Group Behavior

Those of you following my posts will note that I love to study gratitude in addition to feeling it and watching others practice and talk about being grateful. The study of gratitude will take years to fully understand all the dimensions, traits, and states. My purpose is to excite you, influence your thinking, invite you to reflect, and please you with various examples of joyful gratitude. Once in a while I will take you a bit deeper into an understanding of what it means to be grateful. Today is such a posting, which is why I label this particular blog as #gratitudeultra.

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Staying in a State of Gratitude Is Not Easy: So How Do I Do It?

Recently, I wanted to go out to lunch with a friend. We tried four different restaurants and each one was crowded with a long wait. Plus, we had to mask up so we wanted to social distance. We had even gone at an early hour to avoid the crowds. I guess everyone else had the same idea. However, when we got to restaurant number five, it was empty. The food was better than the other places we had visited and the lunch was actually more enjoyable.

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Staying in a State of Gratitude is Not Easy: So Why Do It?

When I began my journey to gratitude, it seemed easy to find examples of kind acts by people, fun pet moments, memorable acts of generosity between individuals, and so forth, but as this pandemic drags on I am observing more stress, more anger and frustration, greater impatience, visible sadness, signs of depression, instances of hopelessness, and fits of intolerance all around me. It is hard to stay grateful each and every day when you see and hear stories of death and dying, fights on airplanes and in shops over wearing or not wearing masks, lack of clarity on what will happen when school begins again, red States and blue States, and political disagreements.

How in the world does one stay grateful and joyful when there seems to be pain and sadness all around?

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Gratitude For Life’s Lessons

An activity is suggested that compares two points in time in your life: a younger you compared to an older you. What would the older you tell the younger you? Using personal photographs practice this activity with the author and see what would be your own personal outcome?

This posting focuses on the journey to gratitude for life’s lessons. Five lessons learned on the journey to a State of Gratitude are discussed with examples from the author’s life. The Lessons include the following:

Lesson One: Love Your Family. Two poems are read: My Family, and You Carry My Genes by Marian Elsie Blake in the book, A House Inside of Me by Mary Blake Huer, available on Amazon.

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Grateful To Reflect on Police Action

I am not a political person. I watch the news and try to be informed about current issues but I do not write letters to the editor, or protest in the streets etc. To me it is important to have peace and calm and live as stress free as possible (due to past health issues). But today I had an interesting experience that I invite all of you to reflect upon: I had an encounter with a policeman. I can only remember speaking with a policeman one or two times in my life, so this was a rare encounter for me.

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Gratitude For Exploring Energy in Neuroscience

Today I was listening to a Webinar with Dr. Zach Bush, Dr. Kristen Willeumier and Dr. Peter Cummings as I was riding my stationary bike. The topic was on The Brain…neuroscience..offering actionable strategies to live a more healthy, balanced life… I love Dr. Bush’s talks!

The Drs. were focusing on the energy within our brains, our minds, our consciousness, and learning to control our emotions and responses to events in our lives… I started riding my bike as I listened. I was also thinking about a posting about being a good listener to others…

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Gratitude for Seasons of Life

This posting reminds us to celebrate all seasons of life, but especially our elderly family members and neighbors as they may not be with us tomorrow. Personal stories highlight special moments between senior couples and also focus on the musical talents of many of our parents. Have gratitude for your older family members.

#gratitudelite

Gratitude for Mothers of Special Children

Mothers of special children are amazing. This posting focuses on one mother of an autistic child who was often disruptive to the family. The awesome mother would sing to her daughter to calm her and to try to teach her. When her daughter was good she would sing “You Are My Sunshine”. When her daughter was having a bad day, the mother would sing “One Day at a Time, Sweet Jesus”. This posting focuses on the lyrics from both songs and reminds us to have gratitude for the good as well as the bad times in life. Especially during the pandemic, the words to the songs offer lessons to us all.

#gratitudelite