I can't remember when I stopped with a daily gratitude practice. Even without the dailiness, I will forever be thankful for the power of active gratitude in one's life. As I reach mid-way through my year (my birthday is in January so the six month mark is eight days away) I am thinking how to end the year with action and strength.
I am consciously creating shifts - if you read my other post today, Misadventures in Anxiety, you will see what I mean.
My friend Jen Alex Allen creates a weekly Tuesday Thanksgiving so I thought I would borrow her day to create my own list and allow myself that soft, quilt feeling of gratitude to wash over me as I continue with my day.
1. I am so grateful I get to witness sunsets like this one I saw from my dear friend Gai's backyard this weekend. How glorious is this view? My spirit calms at the sight of it and even now, looking at the photo, I feel peace again.
I am so grateful it is back-to-school sale season! I have purchased several new notebooks and sundries so far. I even allowed myself a prettier-not-just-practical morning pages notebook. Usually I use the cheapest most blah notebooks and composition books for my morning pages but this time, since it was on sale, I was willing to spend just a little bit more. My Mommy raised a frugal daughter.
I am so incredibly grateful for sacred spaces so close to wherever I find myself. This labyrinth is in Baywood Park, a section of Los Osos on the central coast. There is a less fancy labyrinth here in Bakersfield I use for prayer walking. Such powerful moments of grace are found in the labyrinth. I'm so glad I have been willing and open to trying them out in all the places I visit.
(And I am grateful for the online labyrinth locator!)
I love road trips in an over the top sort of way. I am so grateful I can pick up and go as regularly as I do. I suppose they might get tiresome if it was an allt he time thing, but for now... I am simply grateful for all the options open to me and I may freely travel to most places.
I am sooooo grateful!
I am sooooo grateful the rain this weekend made me s-l-o-w d-o-w-n happily and on purpose. Originally I was supposed to drive to the Pacific Northwest this week, but partially due to my extreme anxiety lately I couldn't bring myself to get up and go. Instead, I took it easy and gratefully received some extra special care from my friend Gai. You'll see a photo of her coming up below here. It was some unbelievably potent medicine: women helping each other when one is feeling unwell. Because I was calm and going slowly, everything felt better and I was able to stop along the way and get photos like this one. I am soooooo grateful.
I am sooooo grateful for my creative fascinations and projects, like the shopping cart photo series I've been creating for the past two plus years. One day I will do something more with them. For now, just fascinated by the metaphor. I am soooo grateful!
I am sooooo grateful for rainy day silly time with my friend Gai here in this crazy cut out. She is the mermaid. I am the pirate. We had been taking selfies but another daring in the rain tourist (or perhaps local!) came along and snapped a few for us. What a treasure of a friend and a forever memory filled with, "Remember the day when?"
I am soooo grateful!
What are you grateful for today?
# # # # #
Julie Jordan Scott inspires people to experience artistic rebirth via her programs, playshops, books, performances and simply being herself out in the world. She is a writer, creative life coach, speaker, performance poet, Mommy-extraordinaire and mixed-media artist whose Writing Camps and Writing Playgrounds permanently transform people's creative lives. Watch for the announcement of new programs coming in September 2015 and beyond.
To contact Julie to schedule a Writing or Creative Life Coaching Session, call or text her at 661.444.2735.
Check out the links below to follow her on a bunch of different social media channels, especially if you find the idea of a Word-Love Party bus particularly enticing.
Please stay in touch: Follow me on Twitter: @JulieJordanScot
Be sure to "Like" WritingCampwithJJS on Facebook. (Thank you!)
And naturally, on Pinterest, too!
© 2015
