A Thanksgiving Reflection On Gratitude – Moxie On Monday

Wayfarer’s Chapel, Palos Verdes Peninsula, CA

“You can’t see the forest for the trees.” – Proverb

Gratitude is a beautiful thing. Your gratitude. My gratitude. Our gratitude.

This week brings with it one of my favorite holidays – Thanksgiving.

There is so much to be thankful for … grateful for … an abundance of blessings in our world. 

With Thanksgiving, oftentimes, comes reflection – what are we grateful for? 

I’ve been spending a lot of time lately … reflecting … on just about everything …mostly, life.

Reflecting on reflection.

When I look back on my journey along the spiritual path … a journey filled with trials and tribulations … I realize that I received a huge jump start that ignited a lifelong passion and enthusiasm for this light filled path long ago. 

It was a gift given me during one of the darkest times in my life. I had just lost a child. I found myself having to make an impossible decision to terminate a pregnancy. I found out the baby I was carrying inside of me was dying. Devastated and thrust into an inner darkness and despair, I couldn’t see a way out.

And, then, this gift arrives – a life changing gift – one that would impact the trajectory my life would take: Wayne Dyer’s, “A Spiritual Solution to Every Problem.” 

I listened to those CD’s playing endlessly in my car as I shuttled my kids about and tried to resume life from a brutal and dark space. This simple batch of CD’s contained so much light that began to dispel the darkness over time, all by itself.

A Spiritual Solution To Every Problem began to light a spark inside my heart, one where I would begin to see my life and everything in it in a whole new way. It also taught me the difference between the Big Stuff and the Small Stuff. Terminating that pregnancy and grieving for the loss of my little girl was Big Stuff, and it taught me perspective.

We live in a world that is both a microcosm and a macrocosm. 

Remember the book, “Don’t Sweat The Small Stuff,” … and it’s all small stuff, they say?

When it comes to gratitude and being thankful, we humans tend to get caught up in our humanness, in our daily lives with our daily problems and struggles … in the small stuff.

A spiritual solution simply means changing our focus, shifting our perspective, thus, seeing things, including our problems from a completely different vantage point.

Think of it this way, when we look down, we see our feet and the small area that surrounds them. Yet, when we look up, we see something completely different – the vastness of the sky, the clouds, the stars, the universe.

We are standing in the same place. It’s just a different perspective.

Nothing has changed, except our focus.

When we get caught up in our daily trials and tribulations, we are looking down – a place, where our vantage point is limited.

We say things like “I’m feeling down” “Why, so down?” or  “You seem so upbeat” “Things are looking up.” 

At any moment, we have the choice of our vantage point. 

In this moment, things may seem difficult. Yet, if we step back and look at our situation from the vastness of our life, and all the amazing blessings we have experienced, things begin to look different.

When we choose to shift our focus to one of gratitude, gratitude for our life, for the big things – for our health, a roof over our head, our friends, our family, a warm cup of soup to fill our tummy, the beauty of mother nature, we shift our perspective from down to up, from negative to positive, from micro to macro – from our humanness, our human struggles to our human spirit, our essential nature, and our problems seem to melt away.

Light is active. Darkness is passive.

Shine a light and the darkness disappears.

Gratitude is that light. Appreciation is that light. Thankfulness is that light. 

Looking up, we see the light.

Looking down, we can’t see the light – the light that exists all around us.

When you grumble about a parking ticket, be thankful you have a car.

When you’re angry at your boss for something she said, be thankful you have a job.

When your kids drive you crazy, be thankful for the gift of children.

When life gets you down, stop … look up … and be thankful for the gift of life.

Cheers Beauties, Happy Thanksgiving.  I thank you for the gift of life you have given me through this beautiful, magical, mystical platform. You have helped me to see myself and my life in a whole new way – thank you for helping me to see the light – the brilliant light that was always there. All I had to do was look up.

What are you thankful for?

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