“In your soul are infinitely precious things that cannot be taken from you.” ~ Oscar Wilde

Gratitude feeds the soul. It enhances and maintains happiness and wellbeing, nourishing the mind, body, and spirit. Being appreciative for both what we consider “good” and “bad” in your life nourishes and guides us towards more fulfilling thinking. When you are constantly reminding yourself of what you have to be grateful for, you will be happier. And when we are happier, our lives are vibrant, healthy, and full of promise.

Gratitude reminds you of what truly matters in life. If we make room for a little gratitude each day, it’s easier for us to avoid getting tripped up in the day-to-day stresses and take for granted the things that are important to us. If you remind yourself what you are thankful for each day, you remain grounded and less focused on the superficial mind-swirls that can easily throw you off kilter. Gratitude is something that can be cultivated every day and fine-tuned. In fact, it is very easy to incorporate into your life, considering it costs nothing, and carries substantial tangible benefits. It can be as simple as taking a few moments while brushing your teeth or creating a daily affirmation that you silently repeat to yourself…the options are endless.

Gratitude makes your problems seem less daunting and more manageable. We all have challenges from time to time and life’s many curveballs can be easily blown out of proportion…creating stress, anxiety, and physical and emotional imbalance. The next time you catch yourself getting in the way of your own happiness, try shining the light on a bit of gratitude. You can be grateful for your job, having a healthy family, the gift of a beloved animal, or the many wonders of nature. When we turn the gratitude switch “on”, the things that aren’t serving us shift into perspective and the edges of the insurmountable begin to soften…becoming easier to manage.

Gratitude always comes back to you. What comes around goes around, and when you begin to give thanks for what you have, your gratitude begins to permeate out towards others. This cultivates a healthy cycle of giving and receiving – illuminating life’s many highlights and creating feelings of joy and enthusiasm. The more you focus on the best in life, the more you will attract the best in life.

Here’s to living and BEing!
Peace. – davidji

Words from the great Jack Kerouac…

“I have lots of things to teach you now, in case we ever meet, concerning the message that was transmitted to me under a pine tree in North Carolina on a cold winter moonlit night. It said that Nothing Ever Happened, so don’t worry. It’s all like a dream. Everything is ecstasy, inside. We just don’t know it because of our thinking-minds. But in our true blissful essence of mind is known that everything is alright forever and forever and forever. Close your eyes, let your hands and nerve-ends drop, stop breathing for 3 seconds, listen to the silence inside the illusion of the world, and you will remember the lesson you forgot, which was taught in immense milky way soft cloud innumerable worlds long ago and not even at all. It is all one vast awakened thing. I call it the golden eternity. It is perfect. We were never really born, we will never really die. It has nothing to do with the imaginary idea of a personal self, other selves, many selves everywhere: Self is only an idea, a mortal idea. That which passes into everything is one thing. It’s a dream already ended. There’s nothing to be afraid of and nothing to be glad about. I know this from staring at mountains months on end. They never show any expression, they are like empty space. Do you think the emptiness of space will ever crumble away? Mountains will crumble, but the emptiness of space, which is the one universal essence of mind, the vast awakenerhood, empty and awake, will never crumble away because it was never born.”
― Jack Kerouac, The Portable Jack Kerouac