appreciation

My Personal Energy Mandala

I just had my personal energy mandala done by Keith at Quantum Fractal Mandala Energy , as a gift from Jeannette Maw at Good Vibe University for winning a treasure hunt there. Well, let me say that my energy mandala is quite a treasure in itself! It’s beautiful! What a wonderful work of art and it’s exciting to feel and see the energy! I’m so appreciative! Thank you!

It’s Snowing Over My Tulips!

I just added this cute little “extra” to this blog, which means that it will be snowing here until January 4, 2011! How cool is that? I love it. While normally one doesn’t see tulips in full bloom with snow falling on them, I’m liking the temporary look. And while I’m liking it, it reminded me of how much I really do love snow.

So today I’m appreciating snow! While we don’t have any yet here in New York City, I can go to this blog of mine and get some anytime, day or night!

Today is my final day of blogging everyday for the month of November and I’ve done it on two blogs! I did it as part of the National Blogging Month (NaBloPoMo). When I first started out with this personal challenge for myself, it came after months of inactivity blogging. While my main blog, Journey of A Spirited Strider, has been quite active since I started it in 2007, I hadn’t written on it or anywhere since mid-July of this year. My mother died this summer and I just didn’t have the motivation to write. But after an inspiration from Nancy Barry-Jansson, and after seeing the NaBloPoMo challenge (which I had attempted to do some years ago), it gave me the incentive to get back here to write.

Since I am a huge fan of appreciation everyday anyway, I figured it wouldn’t be that difficult to find topics. And it wasn’t. When we appreciate, we attract more in which to appreciate! In other words, a daily practice of appreciation creates opportunities to look at our everyday world in a new light. We automatically see the positive, rather than the negative in a situation, we set the tone for “having a great day” everyday and we are generally happier. It’s a great habit to get into.

So while I won’t be posting everyday from now on, I suspect I’ll be coming back here a bit more often as I’m reminded of how powerful it is to write down one’s appreciations.

GoodVibeUniversity

I’ve got one day left of the National Blog Posting Month (NaBloPoMo), where we blog everyday for the month of November! It wouldn’t be complete here without sending my appreciation to my friends at GoodVibeUniversity (GVU for short). I so appreciate this site and all of the people who are there. I love how just by signing in, I’m able to get uplifted in a second by all of the positive energy! It’s THE place to learn from top notch law of attraction coaches, and especially from GVU’s creator, also known as Good Vibe Coach, Jeannette Maw! She gives so generously of her time and talents and I appreciate her very much! I appreciate everyone, especially those who consistently take the time to comment on posts and to give very inspiring insights, time after time. I love the Treasure Hunt fun and the rampages of appreciation, the Outsourcerers who are so very powerful and all of the special calls that are hosted and the recordings that are available (as I usually cannot make them ‘live’).

It would be impossible for me to recall all of the people there that I appreciate now, so I’m giving everyone there a BIG HUG and a “shout out” in appreciation today because I love you all! Thank you for your insights, your friendship and for what’s to come!

I Hear You!

As I was signing into this blog tonight, and reading this blog’s title “The Gab of Gratitude,” it struck me that if I didn’t have the ability to hear, I would be limited in the “gabbing” that takes place in my world. So tonight I’m appreciation my hearing. While I’m sure that people born without the ability to hear are blessed with an extraordinary ability to tune in to their other senses, I’m just so grateful that I can hear!

I appreciate all the sounds in my world, especially talking with other people, music, cheering at a sporting event, the sound of trains passing by, the sound of babies, children playing in playgrounds, the television shows, the sound of cats purring, birds chirping, dogs barking, wind whistling through the trees, airplanes taking off and landing, water running, ocean waves, and so much more! I’m so glad to hear myself when I talk to myself, too! So I’m thankful for the ability to hear!

So take a moment and sit and just listen to the sounds in your world. Don’t you appreciate them, too?

Gratitude Dance!

This is over 3 years old now and I still love it! So grateful for content like this on video, and for the uplifting and fun message of appreciation! As we approach Thanksgiving Day here in the U.S., what will your gratitude dance look like?

New York City

I so appreciate New York City. There is so much to do here! I can either do things or not, but it’s always nice to know I have a choice. I love that I can go to great museums, restaurants, theater, musical performance and see inspiring speakers. I can find all kinds of foods at the local supermarket and incredible items at specialty places. People are always stopping into New York and I appreciate the opportunities to see them when they do. (I just saw Wayne Dyer again yesterday and Mike Dooley tonight.) And I’ll most likely take in a Broadway show this week with one of my daughters who is here for Thanksgiving. I love the variety of people and the visitors who stop by, too.

I love New York! And that’s not just some cliché! I truly mean it!

It’s Saturday, So Why Am I Up So Early?

It’s Saturday morning and I’m up at 5:30 a.m.! Why is that? While I’m not sure of the answer, as I had intended to sleep in, sometimes waking up early or even in the middle of the night provides opportunities for inspiration, writing and other creative tasks.

I’m not sure I’m feeling particularly creative right now, but I am very grateful it’s Saturday! 🙂 So I decided to do a tiny blog post in appreciation of waking up early and writing another blog post.

Actually, this is just another example of how we can turn what may not seem all that exciting (e.g. waking up early on a Saturday “sleep in” day) into a more positive feeling of appreciation for why it also feels good (I have a topic for my blog post today as part of my blogging everyday for a month at NaBloPoMo). Practicing gratitude everyday (and particularly in the morning for me), establishes a “tone” for my day that usually keeps gaining momentum throughout the day. What we appreciate, radiates and expands.

So this morning I’m grateful for reminding myself of the power of gratitude and the technique of being able to find appreciation in a situation where things didn’t exactly turn out as I expected. There’s always an opportunity to see my early morning Saturday as an opportunity to explore creative pursuits, leaving me free later on to watch my college football (or to take a nap later!), rather than moan and groan about how I really wanted to sleep in this morning and now I’m wide awake. Feel the difference?

Enjoy your Saturday!

Appreciating the Big Picture

I haven’t given this blog the attention it deserves since I started it. Yet I know the power of gratitude in life: what you appreciate, radiates in your life! So I decided to make a commitment to blog everyday this month both here and at my other blog, Journey of A Spirited Strider, as part of NaBloPoMo month.

I was listening to a recent Abraham-Hicks recording about the importance of our focus. Abe says that we often focus on what’s not going right and really take for granted what is right with our world. Abe goes on to say that there is so much wellness in the world, but we rarely take the time to appreciate the BIG picture.

So in that spirit, my first post for November is all about the big picture.

I am so grateful that the Sun came up today. I love its warmth and how its rays of light brighten up the world around me. I am so grateful for this planet Earth, that rotates and the orbit that it makes around the Sun. I love how we have both a day and a night. I love the seasons, too. It all works together so perfectly, even though we hardly take the time to notice it.

Oh, how I love the canvas that is our sky! I love the blue skies and the clouds that allow my imagination to work overtime in identifying what they’re drawing for me, while they may draw a different picture for the person who is next to me. I love the sky at night and the beautiful moon that seems to change shapes throughout the month, and how it glows. I love the moon next to those twinkling stars that speckle the space and create tons of wishes for people looking at them.

I love the Universe. I love that its infinite. I love how we don’t know much about it, too. I love the opportunity to dream about other worlds, to ponder, to inspire, to theorize, to grow, and to believe. I love how the Universe conjures up infinite ways for us to have an opinion about it. Yet no one really knows. And while we don’t really know, it all works so perfectly. I love that!

Thank you. You are perfect, even though we rarely take the time to notice it. So today I’m making this space to give credit to you! Here’s to the big picture!

I’m Grateful for Techniques Like These

People may think that you have to spend long periods of time in meditation in order to be peaceful, heal or to manifest your desires. Yet I have found small doses of “meditative techniques” work what feel like miracles in quieting the mind. Here is one that I recently discovered from Deepak Chopra. I love and appreciate techniques like this! I invite you to watch the video and test it out yourself. You’ll notice that there’s a lot of gratitude going on in the routine, too. 🙂

It’s always good to be grateful and to appreciate. “I am.”