How a Gratitude Journal Works

Today is Monday, November 18, 2013.

A lot of people from different spiritual paths have been posting what they are grateful for on Facebook lately.  Maybe it's because they are gearing up for Thanksgiving, but I truly hope that they will continue the practice after the holidays are over. 

What's the secret of a gratitude journal?  It's simple.  It's all about focus.  In this physical world, you get what you focus on.  If you are focused on your fears and worries, you will get what you are afraid of or worried about.  If you are focused on love, you will get love in return.  And if you focus on gratitude, you will start looking for more things to be grateful for – and you will find them.

Yesterday I decided to download an application for my relatively new iPhone that would allow me to find my phone if it were stolen.  I could sync the iPhone to my Mac, and look for my phone using the Mac – or I could look for a stolen computer with my phone.  But I realized once I had downloaded this application that my computer's operating system was out of date, and incompatible with the iPhone app.  

Fortunately, Apple had released its newest operating system (OS), called Mavericks, as a free download.  I decided to take advantage of this.  It took the application a long time to download (very rare, these days).  I thought for a while that it was crashing, because the text box where I normally type in my Apple ID and password, were curiously blank.  There was a blue "OK" button in the box, but the box had no text, and the blue button had no "OK" on it.  I realized that if I waited for a few moments, that I could type in my password, anyway, and the download finally started.  Then I had to install the application, and that took a long time, too.  

Finally, I restarted the computer and logged in – only to find that all my files were gone!  This is a very rare event for a Mac user when upgrading the OS.  I've heard more than one PC owner crying that his or her files were lost or overwritten, but Mac owners don't generally have this problem.  I found the the files for my novel were still intact in Google Drive, but I had not backed up anything else there.   That was very stupid of me. 

The thing that upset me the most was that I had just completed a slide show on PowerPoint about how to read the hiragana syllabary of Japanese.  I had painstakingly typed in the hiragana characters for the presentation, and had used my favorite graphics application for the image files.  One of the first things I realized was that the graphics application I had depended on for years would no longer work on the new OS.  So I went to the Apple Store and bought a graphics application that might prove useful.  Then I spent hours figuring out how to use it so that I could remake the presentation.

I finally decided to close what I had done and check in on Facebook.  Before I could do that, however, a dialog box announced that there were some important applications that needed to be upgraded, so I started those upgrades.  When they were finished, my computer had to be turned off and restarted, and I had to log back onto the computer.  This is when I discovered that I'd inadvertently created two new IDs.  I had thought I couldn't use the old ID, but now I saw that I could, too, use it.  So I logged into the older ID and guess what: there were my files!   

The next thing I did was try to delete the two newer IDs that I made.  Well, that took quite a while to accomplish.  

I'm grateful that I found my files, and I'm grateful that I have learned a lot of new things since yesterday, but I sure did spend the day differently from the way I had envisioned it.  I'm also glad that so many of my friends have been posting what they're grateful for, because they have reminded me to be grateful, a well.  After all, I would never have learned some new ways to do old tasks if I hadn't upgraded my OS.  

Just as we have to learn new things when we upgrade to a new operating system on a computer, we also have to learn new ways to solve our problems in life when we wish to move forward.   I'm grateful for an experience that reminded me of this.  :-)

Use the Triple Filter Test for Gossip

Today is Sunday, November 17, 2013.

There's a great story going around social media, and I've got to pass it on.  It's the story of the Triple Filter Test.   There are actually a couple of different versions going around.  One says the test was given by the ancient philosopher, Socrates, who lived form about 469 to 339 BCE.  The other story speaks of an Islamic scholar who lived in Baghdad during the Abbasid period, which is from about 750 to 1258 CE.  

To tell the truth, this is such a good story that it doesn't really matter who might have thought it up first.  Here's the story, and since Socrates was a scholar, I'm going to just call the main character "the scholar."

***     ***     ***     ***     ***

One day a scholar was visited by an acquaintance who asked him, "Do you know what I just heard about your friend?"

"Wait," said the scholar. "Before you tell me anything, I'd like you to run your story through a little test that I call the Triple Filter Test." 

"Triple Filter?" asked the acquaintance.

"That's right," said the scholar.  "Before you talk to me about my friend, it might be a good idea for you to take a moment to filter whatever you're going to say.  That's why I call it the Triple Filter Test.  The first filter is Truth.  Have you made absolutely sure that what you're about to tell me is true?"

"Uh, well, no," said the man.  "Actually, I just heard about it..."

"All right," said the scholar.  "So you don't really know of this is true or not.  Now let's try the second filter, Goodness.  Is what you are about to tell me about my friend something good?" 

"No, on the contrary," answered the acquaintance.

"So you want to tell me something bad about my friend, but you're not certain if it's true.  Well there's one more filter: Usefulness.  Is this information about my friend going to be useful to me?" 

"No, not really," admitted the acquaintance. 

"If what you wanted to tell me is neither true, good, nor useful, why do you want to tell it to me at all? "

***     ***     ***     ***     ***

I assume the acquaintance didn't tell the scholar whatever he had intended to relate.   This advice is similar to that given by the spiritual leader of my religion, Eckankar.  Sri Harold Klemp advises us to pass a kind of "triple filter test," although he didn't call it that.  He said that we should ask ourselves, "Is it true?  Is it kind?  Is it necessary?" As far as I'm concerned, these questions are the same as the ones in the story above.  If what you have to say isn't positive, it's probably not very kind, either.  And if it's not useful, then it's not necessary. 

If we all filtered our speech in this way, whichever questions we ask ourselves, we could avoid a great deal of negativity.  :-)

(Image credit: photo of dichroic filters from  Wikipedia.)

Walking in Balance

Today is Saturday, November 16, 2013. 

Teach me how to trust my heart, my mind, my intuition, my inner knowing, the senses of my body, the blessings of my spirit.  Teach me so that I may enter my sacred space and love beyond my fear, and thus walk in balance with the passing of each glorious sun.  –Lakota Prayer

Protect yourself from your own thoughts. –Rumi
 
Yesterday I wrote about not thinking too much.  Today's post is in that same vein: learning to trust our hearts, our intuition, our inner knowing, and our physical senses.  So often we only let our reasoning minds guide us through life, without taking into consideration the many other means of experiencing life that we have at our disposal.  The result is that we become unbalanced.  

So often, we ignore the little aches and pains in our bodies until they become big problems.  We fail to notice the subtle behaviors of the people around us that might give us a clue to their feelings and instead project our own feelings onto others.  We discount our inner knowing, preferring to seek outer confirmation for something we already know.  We mistrust the little nudges that whisper to us that we should do something or refrain from doing something, second-guessing ourselves over and over until we are completely confused and unable to go forward.  We repress our feelings out of vanity or a sense of social propriety.  

We have been given everything we need to walk in balance in this physical life: a body with senses to experience things physically, a heart to sense the world in terms of feelings, a mind to bring order to our world, and a sense of intuition that helps us to access information on a non-physical level.  We are Souls, non-physical beings, having a physical experience from which to learn.  Let us make full use of all that we have been given.   :-)

Don't Think Too Much

Today is Friday, November 15, 2013.

I just had to write about this cartoon because it says so much.  The man is being showered with love, the unconditional love of God, but he is carrying an umbrella, which looks suspiciously like a brain.  There are a lot of people who like to get into philosophy and who like to do a lot of thinking about life.  There's nothing wrong with this, but when we think too much we sometimes inadvertently separate ourselves from the experience of receiving God's love in direct form.  Fortunately, we don't have to understand God in order to receive God's love.  

It's the same with a light switch.  I walk into my kitchen and turn on the switch, and the light works, assuming that the light fixture in the kitchen has not burnt out and that there has been no power outage.  I can't even give you an adequate definition of what electricity is or explain how it works, but I can turn on the light in the kitchen, anyway.  Now, a scientist could walk into my kitchen, too, and flip the switch, and he (or she) could explain everything, and that's fine - the scientist could appreciate the light in the kitchen on a whole other level from the way I appreciate it.  But all the same, the light switch works, whether someone understands how it works or not.   That's how God's love is. We don't have to understand it.  All we have to do is accept it and enjoy the shower.

I have always been a very mentally inclined individual, and I do love to think about and analyze things.  I have to remember not to spend too much time thinking and to spend more time "doing" and "experiencing."  Next time I'm tempted to spend a lot of time analyzing something, I'm going to bring out this little illustration and remind myself not to overdo on the analysis.  :-)

Don't Bother Making a Bucket List: Do It Now

Image credit: Susan Abrams Milligan
on Facebook

Today is Thursday, November 14, 2013. 

One day you will wake up and there won't be any more time to do the things you've always wanted.  Do it now.  –Paulo Coelho

Lots of people have dreams of things they'd like to do in their lives, and whenever we put something on the back burner, it gets put into our "bucket list," whether we are aware of it or not.  Many of us have no idea we even have a bucket list, which is seen as something you don't make until you're either old or terminally ill.  By then, of course, for the vast majority of us, it's too late.

The time to do things is NOW, always now.  If not right now, then in the very near future.  If it doesn't seem like one of those things that will ever get done, or if your dream depends on winning the lottery or some similar stroke of blind luck, you may need to re-think it.  Maybe it's just a pleasant dream you've been hanging onto (and giving energy to) that you might be better off letting go.   Or maybe will discover, upon reflection, that you don't really have to level of intention you really need to have in order to manifest your idea.  Maybe it's a dream that you feel you "should" have for some reason.  (Such as "I should have written my big book by now" or "Only married people are truly happy, so if I want to be truly happy, I should find someone to marry.")  Whatever it is, if you can't see yourself actually doing it, then maybe it's time to let that go and try for other things that are still doable.  After all, if you are spending your energy hanging onto an inappropriate dream, if you let the that dream go, you should have all that energy to use for something else.

But who am I to be telling you what to do?  Of course, I'm not really talking to you.  I'm talking to myself...  :-)

People Who Go the Extra Mile: Making the World a Better Place

Today is Wednesday, November 13, 2013.

Lots of people talk about going the extra mile, but very few people actually do this.  Going the extra mile is one of things that distinguishes the go-getters in business from those who only just mark time.  The go-getters go to work early and stay late.  They make the extra phone call or send the extra email.  They might help a customer unload or unpack a shipment.  They don't just tell employees what to do; they actually show them and sometimes work right along side them.  

Business is not the only area of life where people go the extra mile.  We can go the extra mile in service, in attitude, and in effort in any area of life.  We can go the extra mile in our careers, in our relationships, in our communities, and within ourselves.  We go the extra mile when we pick ourselves up after a failure and try again, perhaps slightly differently the second time, rather than complaining that the task is impossible.  We go the extra mile when we do more than the norm or more than what is expected.  We go the extra mile when we check our work carefully to make sure there are no errors, when we check more than the required number of sources to write a report, and when we bother to get the facts straight in a confusing situation.  We go the extra mile when we spend a little extra time talking to a person, even though we are feeling rushed.  We go the extra mile when we take the time to walk a person to his or her destination, rather than just point and give directions.  

Have you met anyone who went the extra mile with you?  How did you feel about it?  Were you aware at the time that the person did more than expected?  Did you appreciate what the person did for you?  If you didn't get a chance to thank the person at the time, it's not too late.  You can still do this, Soul to Soul, on the Inner.  Just go into contemplation.  Imagine meeting the person you'd like to thank.  Imagine the setting of the meeting at the the person himself or herself.  If the person looks a little different than he/she did the last time you saw him/her, that's OK.  That's just how the person wants to be seen now, as Soul.  Remember that you will look a little different, too. 

Recall what the person did for you and thank them for it, telling the person how much you appreciated the help and what it meant in your life.  Trust that the person, as Soul, knows you are grateful. 

Have you ever gone the extra mile for someone?  If so, why not resolve to do this more often?  If not, try to think of some way to go the extra mile for people by doing more than the minimum.  Try to do at least one thing each month, then switch to once a week.  Eventually, you will be doing it every day.  :-)

 
 

Stress: A Type of Attachment

Today is Tuesday, November 12, 2013.

Stress is an alarm clock that lets you know you're attached to something that's not true for you.  –Byron Katie

In order to understand this quote, you have to know that an attachment is anything you think you can't live without.  Now, consider the causes of stress.  For you, they may include your job, your responsibilities at home as well as at work, your financial obligations, chronic illnesses and injuries, fears about the future, and traumatic events such as theft, rape, death or a loved one, divorce, job loss, or natural disaster. 

Wait, you say. I can't live without my job.  That's not an attachment, that's reality.  Well, it may be true that you need an income, but do you absolutely have to stay in the particular job you are doing right now?  Of course not.  You could be in a job with a much more understanding and supportive boss, one that pays better, has better working conditions, and one that challenges you in ways that are healthy.  Or it might just be that you are doing a job just to support the lifestyle that you are attached to.  If you got a job that you enjoyed much more, might you also be willing to accept a simpler lifestyle with fewer possessions and fewer social perks? 

What about your responsibilities?  Are you taking on too much?  Do you absolutely have to say yes to every request?  Aren't there others who could do the job just as well?  Is it necessary for you to control every outcome? Is it necessary for you to do the job all by yourself?  Are you attached to getting all the credit for a particular job?  Couldn't you accept some help and share the credit with someone else?

Are you attached to your financial obligations?  Do you really have to live in a large house in an upscale neighborhood, or a fancy apartment in a high-rent area?  Do you truly need all that room and all those things you have stored in your closets?  Did you have to buy that big car, that exotic vacation, that set of golf clubs, that high-end perfume, or the latest tech gadget?

What about your physical condition?  If you have a chronic illness, what is it about your lifestyle that causes it?  Are you attached to eating foods that don't agree with your body?  Are you attached to a sedentary lifestyle?  Are you attached to caffeinated or carbonated beverages?  Do you eat a lot of sugary and salty junk foods?  Are you attached to drinking alcohol, smoking tobacco, or using prescription, non-prescription, or recreational drugs?   Are you attached to an emotional issue that keeps you from losing weight?  Are you attached to eating for emotional reasons?   Does your body fat protect you from having to deal with other issues? 

Do you worry a lot about things that might happen?  Are you attached to being able to control outcomes?  

And finally, why do you think you pulled a traumatic event into your life?  Did you sign up for the experience to learn a Soul lesson, or are you just attached to drama because it makes you feel important, needed, or sorry for yourself.  

Whatever the cause of stress in your life, try to view it from the point of view of an attachment.  How would your life change if you were to let go of that attachment?  Might it be possible to feel that you are living a productive and meaningful life even if you were not under constant stress?  

Think about it.  :-)