I’m excited to share with you my  guest post  over at Gratitude and Trust, a new blog by the wonderful Tracey Jackson and Paul Williams.  Ms. Jackson is a writer and screenwriter and Mr. Williams is a singer and songwriter.    Some of you ‘older’ folks may remember him from back in the ‘70’s.  He’s written many hit movie songs.   Currently he is very passionately involved in recovery work.

Click here below to read my post and enjoy a new site with uplifting quotes, stories and posts.

http://www.gratitudeandtrust.com/keep-your-eye-on-the-donut-and-not-upon-the-hole/

I will be away next week at Kripalu in the Berkshires for a 5 day ‘immersion’ as an exciting beginning to the 11 month positive psychology certificate course I’m enrolled in.  Therefore, no blog posts for the week.    Check out the course information here.  You might want to look into it for the next session in 2014.  It’s a transformative life course, both personally and professionally.

Have a great week and keep your eye on the donut.  There’s a lot of good stuff there.…

How do we experience gratitude?  Do we feel it?  Do we express it beyond a generic ‘thank you’.  Do we truly experience it and savor such times/events/people?

Gratitude can bring much richness to our lives.  It is an antidote to depression, negativity, the half-empty glass mind-set.  When we bring to mind what we’re grateful for, we experience positive feelings.  Writing them down can sink them into our being even more and elicits those good emotions.

All too often we take note of the negatives and openly express our criticisms; and the positives fall upon those taken-for-granted silences.  It seems like we have to work harder at focusing on what we’re grateful for and work our minds in that direction.   And so some exercises have been developed from the field of positive psychology to enhance and strengthen our appreciation muscle.  One such exercise is a  letter of gratitude, where we write the specifics of our appreciation to someone who has impacted our life in a positive way.  It’s a two-way win of highly charged positive endorphins here.  The writer re-experiences those warm and good feelings as she puts the thoughts and feelings on paper; and the recipient feels great significance knowing how she effected and impacted another person.

It is best to share the letter with the person, preferably in person or at least by mail or on the phone.

Perhaps you will write your letter of gratitude to someone.  Here is mine:

Dear B,

This is long overdue.  But as long as we’re still on this earth together it’s not too late for you to know how thankful I continue to feel for all that you did for Nava and us during our year of her medical crisis. …

Photo by Mike Lovett

I am pleased to introduce you to Letty Cottin Pogrebin, writer, lecturer and activist.  She has written a new book , How To Be A Friend To A Friend Who’s Sick.   The subject of friendship and illness came to the forefront for her as she went through her own battle with breast cancer.

How we support one another through crisis and difficulties – what we say, how we listen, how we can be there for each other – is a topic I’ve written about here too.  And so when I saw that this book had just come out, I thought it was a perfect fit for my theme.

“Empathy translated into action equals kindness.” Letty Cottin Pogrebin

1. What personal qualities have helped you carry on and move forward?

I suppose my general optimism helped me move forward after my cancer diagnosis.  My habit of denial also helped.  I’m very good at repressing the negatives and concentrating on the positive elements of my life.

2. Did you go through a period of self-pity?  If so, what helped lift you out?

I think everyone who gets a serious illness goes through some depression or self-pity; it’s only natural.  What helped me was to refocus on everything I have to be grateful for – my wonderful family, work that I love, a basically okay prognosis for recovery, and the beauty of the world around me.  It may sound corny but that’s what lifted me out of the doldrums.…

“ Biography does not equal destiny.” Tony Robbins

What a great line, a great concept.  When we believe our past shapes our future, we’re missing the boat of life.   Yes, it may explain things and provide understanding but ‘using’ the past as a reason why things can’t be better, or accepting the way things are because of …..as that finger points back in the blame game mode, only continues to keep us entrenched in our victim mode of apparatus.

If this were the case, that our biography creates our life, then why are there so many poor little rich people – people who’ve come out of homes with seemingly everything who end up in rehab – addicted, depressed, suicidal?

And why are there those who’ve had rough childhoods – be it poor, abusive, ill – and they rise above their difficult past and create empowering and successful lives?    Oprah, Dave Pelzer, Jim Carrey to name but a few.

There’s obviously something beyond our biography, beyond our conditions that bring us to a better place.   And that’s the decisions we make each step of the way.    Yes, there are also innate qualities of resilience that we have which certainly help us forge ahead and carry us above and beyond our misfortunes.  And we can certainly build and develop those resiliency characteristics.  But we must also take an active role in carving out the life we want to have and not resign ourselves to doom and gloom because of that big nail sticking out known as the Past.…

Here’s a great question to guide you towards living a better quality of life with hopefully fewer regrets.  (Taken from my current study of positive psychology {certificate program} with Tal Ben-Shahar)

You’re over 100 years old and you’ve been transported back to today. You have the wisdom and experience of a long-lived life.  You have but a few minutes to spend with your younger and less experienced self.  What advice do you give yourself?

I invite you to jot down some answers.  They could be quite revealing in what you’re happy with and would like to continue doing/living and what you’d like to change.

Here is my reflection:

“Harriet, I’m over 100 years old and I’m privileged to be able to come back to you now and reveal a few of my acquired life lessons to guide you along your continuing path.

Hold onto these succinct ideas of living well:

• Let go of what you can’t change so it doesn’t continue to eat away at you.
• Pull out the good in people for it’s all too easy to see and hone in on the flaws.
• The sooner you accept that you’re good enough, the lighter you’ll feel and the easier it will be to accept others in their imperfect states.
• Work on loosening up some of the anger part of your emotional being.
• Be more loving to yourself and you will be less critical of others.
• Always maintain your childlike quality.
• Laugh a lot and derive lots of joy from all over.

…

I’m excited to share my guest blog post featured today at Challenge Success.    What is Challenge Success, you ask?  “Challenge Success works with schools and families to develop research-based strategies that provide kids with the academic, social and emotional skills needed to succeed now and in the future.”

“At Challenge Success, we believe that our society has become too focused on grades, test scores and performance, leaving little time and energy for our kids to become resilient, successful, meaningful contributors for the 21st century.  Every day, we provide families and schools with the practical, research-based tools they need to raise healthy, motivated kids.”

“Challenge Success has the experience, the expertise and the research to help schools and parents most effectively make the changes that lead to healthier kids who are more enthusiastic about life and learning.”  It is based out of Stanford University with Dr. Madeline Levine (author of Teach Your Children Well) as one of its founding members.

And now for  my post:

The taxi number was up on the refrigerator. She knew the time had come. She had missed the bus one too many times. I was upstairs biting my tongue.

I had rescued my daughter enough times by driving her to school when she overslept. “The next time you miss your bus, you’ll have to figure out how to get to school on your own,” I had said. “But none of my friends drive yet, how will I get there? I can’t take a taxi, it’s too much money.”

And so that became the solution to the problem, which quickly became extinct when she didn’t have enough money for her small pleasure items.…