gratitude is in our hands (trust isn't enough)
on taking action, following bliss, thankfulness, and other self-loving kinda things
Hi friends, I don’t know if you have been following, but today is Day 26 of my commitment to 30 Days of Gratitude. I admit there has been more silence than I imagined (hoped). With everything, honestly. But I am not feeling down about this. Silence is never nothing; it is a teacher in disguise. I know there is meaning; there is love.
My mind is working in short-form lately. There are lots of starting points for reflection here. Perfect for this season of our life. Starting with some things that I wrote in Notes last week. Happy foraging.
Notes feels lonely lately. I am so grateful that I have learned to be great company for myself. (for anyone needing to remember - you are here for you first. be your own loving company and inspiration. keep growing and glowing. if someone else joins, that’s great too)
and in the silence and stillness, growth sings and moves. be patient. keep practicing. we are being asked one question, requested to commit to one act: can we - will we, stay long enough to experience it?
Know your why. My why is (finally) me. I am so self-yes.
So I am here. Showing up. Knowing it matters.
And as the year ends…
going back to my intentions. Did you set an intention today?
DAY SEVENTEEN - 30 Days of Gratitude
I set an intention this morning while I was on my yoga mat. I do this every day, a bit bigger on Mondays. A bit bigger on the 1st of the months. The biggest, on the 1st of the year.
Setting an intention feels like giving my mind a gentle push towards what I want to focus on, how I want to feel.
This morning my word was TRUST.
Trust in my heart, trust in my life... Life! Trust in my creativity. Trust in all the parts of me... all that I create. Love, joy, passion, curiosity, clarity, connection... and also sadness, grief, defeat, frustration, doubt, insecurity, confusion, once in a while, loneliness...
but maybe most of all, the knowing of how to come back. So much trust when we know that we will. Much of our forward movement in Life is this coming back, isn’t it?
I know that I always will (can you feel the power in this? - you always will find your way back.). And therefore, I trust in myself… and in Life because I am Life.
We are Life!
Oh… how this practice is a practice. A continuous learning and getting to know (trust) our own instinct, our ability to create and also destroy, then create again. And the power of our trust to bring us back when we are down and outside of who we truly are.
reminder: we are Life.
What does all of this have to do with gratitude? I am so grateful for this. In every moment, we create. And we can choose our intentions in every moment. Most of all, when you do, you are choosing yourself.
So set your intention today. Take this pause right now, sweet thing…
Close your eyes and let it wave towards you, flush over your insides.
Bring your hands together in front of your heart. Feel your intention protected between your two hands. A seed of what you have the ability to create.
Allow yourself to be embodied by your word and then give thanks.
“Thank you intention. Thank you Creation. Thank you to ‘the going in’. Thank you to the ‘coming back’. Thank you for this practice… and me. I am. I feel thankful for myself.”
Stay with this gratitude prayer or simply repeat your word.
When you are ready, reopen your eyes. Return to your word throughout the day.
Trust.
I need this more than anything right now (especially on a rainy day like today - it is so damp in the little space I call home. My energy tends to run low without sunshine, especially at the end of the year.).
But you know what, creating trust is not enough. We also need to create situations and experiences to feel grateful for - really-living, life-worthy stuff. The more ordinary the better. There is more possibility for more and more abundance when we beauty hunt the mundane.
I like to think of it as this: Can I create something that feels heavenly, can I create it from something most people would consider plain and uninteresting?
Gratitude is much about our beautiful ability to create something spiritually uplifting from this world. With everything pulling us away from this, a consistent, living practice is so essential. And in the end, for this personal effort, we will be grateful for ourselves.
(In the end, please let me be able to say: I am grateful for me!!!)
So I am asking you this.
What are you creating for yourself? Love, joy, passion, creativity, passion… compassion?
What do you consistently create every day that you can feel grateful for… that makes you grateful for you(!)?
What mundane act or interaction or sight or feeling are you transforming into uplifting?
Now…
let's get even more specific…
Do you do something that you look forward to every day? Did you ever think of becoming devoted to this?
This is not about Trust. This is about Action. Intentional, forward movement. Fierce acts of love towards your life.
So do you… do you do something that you look forward to every day? I mean something that gets you out of bed and like Jerry Maguire’s mentor, Dick Fox… makes you clap your hands and say, It’s gonna be a great day! I mean really, really excited and energetic.
I can say this about my yoga practice. I love it this much. It completes me. I love it because I know that no matter how I am feeling, less than 30 seconds in, I am already feeling amazingly connected and full.
Isn’t this what we truly desire, what we are all searching for?… Not perfection. But rather, that feeling of wholeness that makes even the imperfect just perfect.
I can also say this about human to human connection. For example, every time I spend intentional time with my girls, when my husband and I carve out carefree, self-care time for us, when I make time for coffee with a friend, when I take a walk in silence with myself - even better if my vision meets up with trees.
And this too…
the human to human connections I am creating with Bare Hearts and the sharing of my two book babies. Everything I create with the intention of reactivating another's tender heart and inner smile makes me feel whole.
”…creating brings me joy. Writing something that makes another survivor feel less alone in their war zone…” -
from his Bare HEARTS Q&A
The question: What perks you up in the morning like a buttercup meeting its first moisture-beaded ray?
Birds singing outside your bedroom window
Spending time with someone who truly sees you
Reading something hopeful and loving with a cup of fresh coffee
Bedtime cuddles with your kids
A bubble bath and scented candles. Mozart in the background. Or maybe Harry Styles or Alicia Keys bring you there?
Walking on the beach at sunset
Running before the city awakens
Pausing on stars, fireflies or sun on water
Sitting in the park and watching children at play
Doing something for another
Baking cookies with someone you love to spend time with
A homemade meal
Your pet greeting you or holding a too cute for words position (
! with Ham)Afterhours with your spouse or partner
The sound of laughter from the other end during a long, long-needed phone call
Your grandma’s tea cup warm between two hands, as you gaze into the wood burning flame… and the world goes on without you
Time to write or draw, dance or sing (express yourself)
A day without something to look forward to is not a complete day. How could it be?
Gratitude often asks us to find usefulness in what appears completely without sense or meaning, in what feels unjust and cruel... we need to be transformers of situations and experience all the time. And gratitude also asks us to create meaning in our life from scratch. Handmade, heart-made.
You don’t find luck. You create your luck You don’t find purpose. You create your purpose..- Maxime Lagace
(you don’t simply find gratitude; you create yours.)
Maybe you have been neglecting this lately - this attention to your life, intention of self-care for your life.
When is the last time you found yourself in a moment feeling: Wow, this feels caring… so good… like love, joy, and peace?
Maybe you have been so focused on responsibility (maybe?… let's laugh at this) that you have forgotten to create wonder, that moment of joy or calm, the spicy space that is so important to our health and well-being.
At the end of our time, we will not be thinking of how much we did; we will be remembering how much (or how little) what we did made us feel complete. It doesn’t have to be much. It just has to feel rich.
So again:
What am I doing today, what moment am I creating today - that I can feel grateful for?
Will I look back and be able to say, thank you!, to myself?
This is coming to my mind right now:
“If you do follow your bliss, you put yourself on a kind of track that has been there all the while waiting for you, and the life you ought to be living is the one you are living. When you can see that, you begin to meet people who are in the field of your bliss, and they open the doors to you. I say, follow your bliss and don’t be afraid, and doors will open where you didn’t know they were going to be. If you follow your bliss, doors will open for you that wouldn’t have opened for anyone else.” - Joseph Campbell
More than just follow it, can we create it?
Last week, I sent this mommy note to my daughter, Kenia. She is 21 yo and well, trying to figure it out.
Love, figure out what you love and run with it. This is the only thing you have control over in life. Look at your momma, I only know what I love. LOVE is the only thing I am clear of. At 55, I am still working on everything else. Or better expressed, I am still practicing the letting go of the idea that any of us can figure out anything else. But I will tell you this, Honey K, figuring out LOVE is enough to hold you up through every bit of confusion. Hold on to what you love with dear love and you will move beautifully, gratefully forward with the mud and the quicksand, the fog and the ice.
Here is something to help you figure out your own personal points of love.
Journal this:
1. Think of at least 3 things you love most to do. The ones that bring you bliss - joy, love, and peace.
2. Think of what these 3 or more things have in common. (type of place, people, energy, movement, other qualities or values...)
3. Those common qualities are what bring you the most fullness.
4. Follow your bliss: add more of this in your life. Spend more time and energy cultivating your fullness, following your own bliss.
Do this exercise. Take the time. Only you can create a beautiful life for yourself. xo mommy
Create.
what an amazing word full of possibility. We always feel grateful for what we intentionally create.
Leaving you with some more from my Notes that you may have missed.
For you, if you too need this reminder today. You never are asked to be more than who you are right now. Your mind can be all over the place. You can be full of emotions or feel nothing at all. You are not broken. Just remember to come back to listening. Don’t try to change a thing. Just deeply listen from within. Don’t run away or hide. When you listen, you are doing what you need to do. The change, transformation, illumination… it will arrive when it is time. be loving my friend. i am doing the same. xo
friends, i am always here for you. i love getting to know you. i want to listen and connect. this space is not a void. not an exihibition of my words. there is a full feeling human reaching out to you. these are not just words. this is my full heart. a greatest intention. me. xo
Do these 2 things to improve your life immediately.
1. Wake up with gratitude.
2. Go to bed with gratitude.
We search for life-improvement tips everywhere. For a lifetime, we ask: How can I create a great life? And it is really so simple. Cultivating love, joy, and appreciation is always in your own, beautiful, two hands. So what are you grateful for today?
My answer: For all they do and create, for all they give, for their deep connection with all that I feel, I thank my hands. I am so thankful for my hands today.
Maybe this is the big message: it is always in your hands
your love is enough. learn this, because sometimes (lots of times) you will have to count mostly on your own, devoted love. trust and take action. when you are in the middle of that next personal crisis, when the world feels brutal, when you cannot seem to climb your way out of grief, when end of the year anxiety takes over… there you are (creating love)…
and yet, you aren’t alone. others are here too. it is strange, i can feel you even when you are not responding. maybe because when you truly learn how to carry your own love, a universal love carries you.
and it says: ‘come back again. don’t ever stop reaching out.’
my response: ‘i never will.’
my heart reaching out towards yours, xo Danni
Note: Give the gift of an inner glow for the holdays and support me too: purchase my books here.
what touched my heart and gratitude recently
Human/Parents Interview: Tina Hedin and Grace & Gratitude by
andThis is not how gratitude works by
Hope comes in the dark… and the Thanksgiving meals you eat in your bathrobe by
November: A letter to myself about gratitude that doesn’t feel forced by
Yes! I say a version of this to my own girls often, "...figure out what you love and run with it." And, thank you for the mention. 🧡
So much goodness here Danni! I loved it. I found inspiring the guidance on setting intentions, the reminder to cherish our morning rituals and to always, always feel gratitude. This💗”And gratitude also asks us to create meaning in our life from scratch. Handmade, heart-made.’” You do that so well!