Tag: thankful for the small things

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Being grateful for even the events of 2020

It’s my birthday month, and this time of year I’m always reflecting over the past year and my choices. To say that 2020 has been a rough year would be a total understatement, but it’s also been a great year for me on many levels. I’ve grown so much in so many ways. I was finally healed and transformed enough to see things clearly and make decisions that I had been sitting on for years. You could say that the transformation process became evident in 2020 with clear 20/20 vision.

During the lockdown, people often asked me how I was doing sheltering in place all alone. I would always tell them that I was doing great having dance parties in my house alone, connecting with people I hadn’t talked with in years and using gratitude on a daily basis. It’s easy to be grateful for the good things that happen to us. We should be grateful in those moments, but it’s much more important (and essential for our overall growth) to employ gratitude when things aren’t that great. There were times this year that I literally had to force gratitude in disappointing situations, but it was worth it because it changed me for the better. It changed my perspective and my energy. It gave me hope and a positive outlook on life.

As I wrote about in The Princess Guide to Gratitude, this quote from Albert Schweitzer has taken on new meaning and truth to me, “The greatest thing is to give thanks for everything. He who learned this knows what it means to live. He has penetrated the whole mystery of life; giving thanks for everything.”

Yes, it’s proper and wonderful to be grateful to those who do or say nice things for and to you, but it’s much more Important to be grateful for those who have showed up in your life as tyrants (it isn’t easy to do in the moment but vitally important) because those people are your greatest teachers, as Dr. Wayne Dyer used to say. They are also the ones who will cause you to transform, if you allow it.

Senee Seale The Princess Guide

 

As I mentioned in The Princess Guide to Gratitude, in a 2003 study, researchers Watkins, Woodward, Stone and Kolts found that grateful people tend to share four characteristics:

  1. They do not feel deprived in life.
  2. They appreciate the contributions of others to their well-being.
  3. They appreciate simple pleasures (pleasurable things that are freely available to most everyone). When a person appreciates simple pleasures, they are likely to experience grateful feelings more often due to frequently being appreciative of commonly occurring experiences.
  4. Grateful people acknowledge the important role of experiencing and expressing gratitude.

As the seasons have changed recently from Summer to Fall, we can always expect seasons in life to change, as well. Even what appears to be negative changes can work out for our highest good, if we allow them to by focusing on gratitude and changing the things within us that we can change.

“These changes can be difficult, but they don’t have to be,” I wrote in The Princess Guide to Gratitude. “It’s all in our perception. We can choose how we view events in our lives. I believe three of the most important tools for dealing with change and new seasons are optimism, joy, and gratitude.”

In each moment, we have a choice of how we’re going to think and respond to events. Sometimes, our choice may be to have no response at all until we have more information and a clearer perspective of the situation. That’s perfectly fine, and the wisest choice of all. We have no control over others. However, we do have total control over the kingdom within ourselves. Staying on the throne and not allowing negative events and actions of those outside ourselves to control how we think and behave is a royal way to live life. Using gratitude — even for the bad stuff that happens — is a useful tool to help us in that process.

Senée Seale is a book author, mental health professional and life guide passionate about helping people create positive changes in their lives and relationships. Are you ready to start attracting positive things into your life through practicing daily affirmations? Get your free copy of The Princes Guide to Gratitude Affirmations. For more information on how to have successful relationships and peace of mind, check out the website today!

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Eyes to see: Being grateful for the small things

On a mini vacation this summer to a family friend’s lake house, I was amazed one night to see two lightening bugs playing with each other — I sat there on the deck and watched them for quite some time. I was also so stunned to see the light of a boat driving by on the lake. These are normal, everyday occurrences for most people, but for me, they are miracles.

You see, more than 20 years ago while I was in college studying journalism and fashion design, I was diagnosed with a rare eye disease called Retinitis Pigmentosa (RP). I saw specialists from Dallas to Germany, and they all told me the same thing — there is no treatment or cure for it and that I needed to learn to be a blind person. I finally did consent to mobility training and learned to use a white cane. However, I’m stubborn when I really want or believe in something. I have never accepted that I will go completely blind — in spite of losing my night vision and most of my peripheral vision — and I’ve always believed that I could be healed. After studying psychology, neuroscience and biology, I know how powerful our minds and bodies are. They can heal themselves. Just cut your finger and watch the process before your very eyes.

Right after Thanksgiving 2015, I changed my diet and started taking supplements, per the advice of a doctor at a wellness center in West Texas. At Christmas break (I was in graduate school at the time studying Clinical Mental Health Counseling) I went to the wellness center for two weeks of detox treatments and monitoring of my diet. (I’m not a morning person, but they forced me to drink carrot juice and protein shakes and eat the approved foods from 8 a.m. to 3 p.m. Then during the early evening and night when I was used to eating because of hunger, food was very limited or not available at all.) Three months later, I was finally able to see a holistic doctor in Houston who a graduate school friend recommended because he had success treating and reversing RP. (The wellness center never had an RP case before, but got me started on the right track.) The doctor further refined my diet and prescribed all new supplements.

In the first nine months, I lost 70 pounds — It was amazing because no matter what I did, I couldn’t lose weight … not even for my wedding or college graduation. However, the vision didn’t seem to be returning very quickly.

I wasn’t born with vision issues. In fact, I had perfect 20/20 vision throughout childhood and my teenage years. In early summer 2018, I saw my first lightening bug since I was a child. Seeing those two playing in summer 2019 at the lake vacation was just a sign from the universe to me that my vision and body were going to make a turnaround.

Just a few days before that trip, I asked my eyes what they were afraid to see. The details of the ugliness in the world? Possibly, but I can still see it every single day — And more importantly, I FEEL it every single day. Just because you can’t see something doesn’t make it go away. I gave myself permission to see the ugly details of the world, observe them and not try to fix them — just let them be as they are.

I also decided on that trip that I was no longer going to allow people to shame this princess because she has physical limitations she is overcoming. We are ALL beautiful and have so many positive gifts to share with the world — I don’t care if you’re fat, skinny, short, tall, straight, gay, confused (most of us are confused in some form or fashion at some point in life) or if you’re a princess with vision issues. We can no longer let the haters put us down or stop us from being used at our full potential!

I’m truly grateful for the little things. They give me hope that bigger and better things are coming soon. I’m also convinced that talking to your body works … even if it takes a while for it to manifest.

What little things are you grateful for and observing in your life today?

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