One of my colleagues showed me different things he produced with his 3D printer. I was ecstatic looking at a little dragon that he had produced. Seeing my enthusiasm, he offered to print something for me. A unicorn? He gave me the name of a website with models of things that have been programmed for 3D printing. There was no acceptable unicorn programmed yet but a few Pegasus unicorns. Here is the one he printed for me. I am grateful for the fun!

I saw a quote on Facebook from Paulo Coelho: “When every day seems the same, it’s because we have stopped noticing the good things that appear in our life.”
I noticed the beautiful colors of the leaves. And I would really notice the delight of eating a scrumptious cookie with white chocolate and cranberries…
What are you noticing today that could make the different than yesterday?

When I was a kid my parents often said “the world belongs to early risers”… « Le monde appartient à ceux qui se lèvent tôt » seemed more profound somehow… Anyway, either from that or from my own disposition, I tend to enjoy getting up early. And this morning, in the wee hours outside, the air was crisp, the sky clear and illuminated by the waning moon and many many stars. I am grateful for the beauty I got to admire this morning.

Yesterday, I had a thought that some things that were not great could bring me joy after the fact. For example cleaning our house. So this morning before anything else I made a plan of what/where I would clean first and second and so on. 5 hours later, I am done, I am not sure where is the joy, but I am certainly relieved. And come to think of it, I am quite happy with myself to have stuck with the plan despite a few deviations. Above all, I am very grateful for Rolly who does that most of the time.

Domi, my mum, told me the following story (in French):
At the supermarket, she said to an employee stocking shelves: “Hello, how are you?”
He replied: “I get by / I make do” (translation gap)
Mum: “Not more?”
Him: “Uh, no.”
Mum: “Me, I am doing amazing. May I ask you a question?” She asked him where to find something and continued her shopping. When she walked by him a bit later he said: “Thank you. I feel better now.”
What an wonderful gift to be able to uplift someone’s mood by acknowledging our own good mood!
What would it take for more of that to show up?
I am grateful for getting inspired!

I was going somewhere without my cellphone (OMG) and I wondered what I could think about that would contribute to my day. And I thought of my default subjects: since your thoughts influence how you feel, you might as well have good thoughts in order to feel good. So I prepared a list of thoughts that I can easily refer to when I want to consciously decide of the direction of my thoughts:
– I love my body / I am grateful for my body. Or what reason could I find to love my body?
– What could I tell myself  / remember that would make me laugh?
– What’s great about my life?
– What could I write  about in my next gratitude post? What am I grateful for?
The facilitator this weekend told us that our brain is an answer finding machine. So it is important to ask empowering questions that will lead to positive responses if one wants to feel good…
What would it take to laugh more?

The magic of the moon continues:
I heard so many people talk about the moon the day after the eclipse. I am grateful for a beautiful event that touched so many people.

I looked up online where to watched the moon rise last night for the super moon. Then I looked at the rising time. Then I found a couple of friends to share the adventure with. I must say, I was really surprised that so many other people had chosen to do the same thing! 🙂
And then, it turned out that I didn’t read the time properly so we were late but the eclipse was going on at moon rise, not later in the night like I assumed so we were right on time for the total eclipse…
I am grateful for the magical evening and the people I got to share it with.

Recently, a friend of mine told me that she had been wondering what made us loose our ability to be ourselves. She said that she remember when she was a child not caring about what other people thought of how she dressed or what she did and then some day it changed… That reminded me of a lot of my childhood pictures. In my twenties, I wondered how my parents let me look that way on so many pictures…
Fashion sense is not my thing. Being happy is what I am after, so now I am grateful that my parents let me not care about how I was dressed and allowed me to be me.

Yesterday, in class, the facilitator talked about how skillful we can become at aweful-izing life. We can be so skillful at it that we are no longer conscious that we’re doing it. In the same line of thought, I believe that I have become very skillful at not being in awe of life / being alive. And I have learned that becoming aware of something is the first step to changing it. Being grateful for what and who is in my life is the beginning of my rehab program into enjoying life more and more and more… I am grateful for those who are witness to this process.