Tag: gratitude

Mood Meter

A few weeks ago, I downloaded the app, Mood Meter, on to my phone. I had read an article about it, and I was curious to experience it myself. The Mood Meter app was created to help people develop better self awareness and emotional intelligence. Basically, how it works, is that you log into the app, and you map your mood, on a four quadrant graph, as shown above. Each color quadrant is divided into smaller squares, so you can better pinpoint, your exact mood. Then, if you would like to try to shift your mood, into an even better feeling place, the app gives you tips on how to do it. (I noticed that “smile”, is a prevalent suggestion.) You also have the option on the app, to type a few words about what is going on in your life and current situations, which very well might be contributing to your current mood.

Last week, was a really cruddy week for me. A lot of things happened that kept my mood in the blue quadrant. (or if I am going to be emotionally intelligent and brutally honest with myself, I should say that I allowed a lot of my life’s circumstances to keep me in the blues) To give you an idea about how tough last week was for me emotionally, according to the mood meter, 64% of the time, I was in the blue quadrant, as opposed to 6% of the time, during the three weeks previous to last week.

Now, of course, I have just been checking into my Mood Meter app randomly, whenever it struck me to do it, without any real rhyme or reason. I have been trying to post my moods at various times of the day, in order to give me clues about what times of day that I tend to feel better. For 23 days in a row, I never missed a day of at least checking into my Mood Meter, at least once or twice. Yesterday, though, I didn’t check into the Mood Meter. I broke my streak. 🙁

I reflected on this fact of missing my check in yesterday, and even without graphing my mood on the Mood Meter app, I came around to some pretty good self awareness. This week has been a much better week for me, emotionally and materially, than last week. Yesterday, was a wonderful day, connecting with my family throughout the day, enjoying a nice lunchtime walk with my husband and our dogs in some comforting, cooler fall weather, and then capping the day off, by meeting some of my closest friends to watch the sunset on the beach. It occurred to me that the proverb “It’s Better to Lose Count While Naming Your Blessings, Than to Lose Your Mind Counting Your Troubles!” (Rev. Run Simmons) totally applied. I sheepishly admitted to myself that I have a tendency to take all of my blessings, and all of the bounty in my life, for granted. It seems that I am quick to question, “Why me?” when troubles come around (and then quick to dot my Mood Meter with a lot of blue dots), but I never seem to question “Why me?” for everything in life which I have been gifted. Overall, my blessings have always, always outweighed my pains. And often, my so-called “pains” have turned out to be blessings in disguise, in the long run. I just took a pause, right now, right before writing this sentence, and I made a point of logging into my Mood Meter and logging my mood, in the far right, of the bright yellow quadrant. I am beaming thinking of one of my wonderful daily blessings that makes me so happy and excited and content- communing with you, my dear readers. I am grateful for you. Thank you for being a constant yellow dot, in each of my days.

All is Well

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Happy Thanksgiving, my wonderful faithful friends and readers! You are appreciated and loved, more than you could ever understand. Thank you so very much for being part of the moment that I get so excited to experience every single morning. I love sitting down to pour out my heart and my inspirations and my ideas and my silliness and my reflections and my confusions. And you hear me! And you support me! And you nod along with me! And you shake your head at me! What a blessing and a gift that you give to me, by acknowledging my blog. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.

This blog is not a chore for me. It is a big part of my heart. It is my blossoming of a part of me that was dormant for so long and is coming into the light, and everyone who has supported this blog has been such a crucial part of that process for me. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.

You are kind. You are caring. You are interesting and connected to life. I am blessed to have you come into my life. I am blessed to feel a sacred connection to each and every one of you.

Okay enough mushy mush! Go enjoy a wonderful day of family and friends and parades, and dog shows, and feasting (and the wonderful anticipatory smells that come before the feasting) and napping and more feasting! I have overheard it said, at least a dozen times this season, from various people who I have interacted with, that Thanksgiving is their favorite holiday. It IS such a wonderful holiday. Thanksgiving is quiet, peaceful, warm, unassuming, mindful, simple, cozy, comforting, loving, unpretentious, humble, virtuous, awe-striking . . . . what’s not to love about this holiday, and yet Thanksgiving does not beg us to love it or to even acknowledge it. It just soothingly invites us in, with arms wide open. In a world which sometimes seems increasingly faster, noisier, attention grabbing, glitzier, angrier, more isolated and divisive than ever before, Thanksgiving is the reminder that at the core of everything, there is a simple, grateful peace that remains steady. Thanksgiving is a reminder that life is abundant and flowing and pulsing, like a regular, soothing, calming heartbeat, enclosed in a warm, clean, soft blanket of the deep intuitive knowing, that in every moment of stillness, at the quiet center of everyone and everything, All is Well.

I’m Grateful

RIP John McCain –  Thank you for your service to our country.

I don’t ever want to politicize this blog.  I’m not a very politics oriented person.  However, I will always be grateful to those who serve our country.  Thank God for all of the people who are willing to do the jobs that make my life and the life of my family members easier, safer and free.  Thank you.  Thank you.   Thank you.

John McCain was a prisoner of war for many, many years.  He was tortured, starved and isolated.  I’m in total awe of people who can go through personal tragedies of that magnanimity and come out the other side still being able to function, serve and grow.  How inspirational!  What a reminder of the resilience of the human spirit!

I read once an interview with several former prisoners of war.  Despite the horrific torture, pain and solitary confinement many of them had gone through, it was almost unanimous that the starvation was the worst part of their ordeals.  I’ll probably enjoy a nice brunch with my family today.  I don’t even think about the idea that there won’t be enough food for me and my family to eat today or any day.  What a blessing that is in itself!

I guess sometimes you don’t know how good you have it in life, until something is taken away.  All of the things that we take for granted on a daily basis are in fact accumulations of blessings.  Thank God for the farmers and the harvesters and the truckers who drive the food to our stores.  Thank God for the people who work in our stores to give us access to the harvest.  Thank God for our ability to pay for our bounty and for the physical ability to ingest our food and savor its multitude of flavors.  Meals are just one of our many, many daily blessings.

I hope that today we are all blessed with a sense of utter gratitude for the many, many miracles that will form this just one single day in our lives.  I am incredibly grateful for you, readers of my blog.  Thank you for making me feel that what I have to say has worth and is of interest to read.  Every act of kindness is an act of love and in the end, love is really what it is all about.