Amanda's Thoughts
SATURDAY: HEART GRATITUDE
“It isn’t what you have in your pocket
that makes you thankful, but what you have in your heart.”
Anonymous
Do we really have any idea of the truly immense nature of our hearts?
People think the brain is the most important organ in the body but it’s not. The heart rules the rest of the body and [...]
FRIDAY: NATURE GRATITUDE
“To educate yourself for the feeling of gratitude means to take nothing for granted.”
Theologian and musician Albert Schweitzer (1875-1965)
How many times have you found yourself refreshed, restored and rejuvenated by a walk in the forest, by a stream or beside the ocean? Nature is full of invisible forces working for you all the time to [...]
THURSDAY: BODY GRATITUDE DAY
“Grace isn’t a little prayer you recite before receiving a meal. It’s a way to live.”
Writer Jackie Windspear
Your mission today is to spend the entire day expressing gratitude to your body! You are to say nothing negative, no matter what your stomach, thighs or face look like! Treat your body with respect today, love it, [...]
WEDNESDAY: “THE PAST” GRATITUDE
“Be thankful that you don’t already have everything you desire. If you did, what would there be to look forward to?”
Anonymous
Here is your big chance: Today your mission—should you choose to accept it—is to work through all the big events in your life that have been negative and reframe them.
Review past relationships, past difficult life [...]
TUESDAY: HOME GRATITUDE
“What a miserable thing life is: you’re living in clover, only the clover isn’t good enough.”
Playwright Bertolt Brecht, from the play Jungle of Cities, 1924
Today is home gratitude day. Find as many things as you can that you are thankful for in your home: your family, your pets, your garden, plants, neighbors or community, your [...]
MONDAY: WORKPLACE GRATITUDE:
“We often take for granted the very things that most deserve our gratitude.”
Author and playwright Cynthia Ozick
What things are you thankful for in your place of work? Go to work today with the specific intention of finding all the things at work you could be thankful for—and then be thankful for them! Your boss, your [...]
SUNDAY: GRATITUDE TO GOD
“I thank God for my handicaps for, through them, I have found myself, my work, and my God.”
Helen Keller, author of “The Light in My Darkness,” published by Chrysalis: West Chester, Penn.
Isn’t it amazing how a power outage in winter can make us so grateful for the power that surges through our houses every day? [...]
Stress Busters 1 – Know when you are stressed….
Last week I started a series on stress, and I promised I would give you a new Stress Buster each week. Here is the first gripping episode.
The best place to start for busting stress is with ourselves. You are the only constant factor in your life. Everything else may change, your partners, your jobs, [...]
Stress is a fact of life , it doesn’t have to be a way of life!
And it seems stress is here to stay – in a big way! People are expected to do more, with less, in less time.
We are in the age of materialism with the ‘nightmare of the two career couple’, where both partners are working , and bringing up children. More single parents exist than ever [...]
NOT SCRAP BOOKS BUT JOY BOOKS!
Cynthia, a wonderful person who saw me speak several years ago at a Creative Memories conference has been showing me lovely examples of her work! While we were email ‘chatting’ recently, I came up with the idea of JOYbooks , not scrap books! I wondered where that term scrapbooks came from as [...]
Celebrate
As leaders, we need to choose to present change in a way that touches peoples hearts AND minds. To give them the skills, knowledge, confidence, and courage to be successful with the new changes; to encourage them, and most importantly, to celebrate small changes along the way.
Our brains need to see /feel/hear the changes quickly, [...]
Never give up – It’s a CHOICE
It’s so easy and natural for most of us to give up when the going is tough. And it’s tough learning news things and changing how we do things and what we think because the work we actually have to do is energy expensive. It takes effort, commitment, perseverance, patience and discipline. And so we [...]
Learning
If we want someone to do something different, we have to give them enough information, knowledge and training to feel supported and confident that they can do what is being asked of them. Learning makes a huge difference.
It is also the way to keep our brains young and vital; and not just simple stuff – [...]
The Joy of Change
“Problems cannot be solved at the same level of thinking that created them”–Albert Einstein
It seems an oxymoron to put joy and change in the same sentence – a short sentence at that! But this is my next mission – to help people understand that change is possible and can be joyful. We know change is [...]
