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 circumstances, your parents, siblings, teachers, school, college experiences, friends, anything negative that has happened to you in the past. Now find the gift each of those brought you. How did you grow as a result of each experience? How did your life change as a result of these people or situations? What would you have been like if it had not happened? What opportunities opened up because of them? What did you learn?

Do you now have the ability to let go and move on or to keep going in the face of difficulties? Did those relationships and situations help you know yourself or to grow spiritually? Did they help you decide never be addicted to anything? Did they give you strength of character; the ability to know right from wrong, or to not take yourself, or life, so seriously?

What capacities did you develop: Resilience? Strength? Humor? Compassion? Determination? Willpower? Courage? Responsibility? Integrity? Ethics?

These are pretty powerful gifts!

Without those experiences and the choices you made with them, you would not be who you are today. You would not have your unique strengths and areas of potential growth!

Bless those people because they are some of your greatest teachers. Be thankful for the situations because they have helped you grow—the toughest lessons are often the most powerful.

A wonderful book called “Molecules of Emotion” by Candace Pert, the scientist who discovered endorphins, shows us that people who hang onto stuff that has happened to them in life are creating a basis for disease. (Did you know that some researchers believe forgiveness is a major factor for healing in many cases of back pain?)

If you choose not to forgive and let go, or find some gratitude in your heart, those things that you cling to from the past can make you bitter and twisted, fearful, angry or disappointed for the rest of your life. They can sit and fester inside you and create the seeds of later disease.

So let go, and find gratitude today!

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