Wow! Two weeks ago I put up my first, ‘I’m back’ post and my intention at the time was to go back to doing a daily gratitude post. I would have thought that after a year of posting every day that I would pick the habit up again without any problems but that hasn’t been the case at all. It looks like I’m back to square one again and will have to really make a concerted effort to remember to jump online and write again.

In some ways it is a relief to realise how quickly I lost the habit of writing every day as it has reminded me that developing a new habit and keeping it, doesn’t just take repetition, it also requires commitment and consistency. My psych has been trying to talk me into doing a six-week mindfulness program that requires me to put aside 2 x 30 minutes a day. So far I’ve managed to do Week 1 three times and Week 2 twice. I find that after three or four days I suddenly forget all about it, and by the time I remember I have to start all over. The author is adamant that the only way to succeed is to do the program consistently.

It’s not that I have any particular issue with mindfulness. I’ve been aware of the benefits for years and have implemented a lot of the theory into my daily life already. It’s just that I haven’t been able to make a firm commitment to giving myself the time each day to focus on the program.

I’d much rather be writing or gardening than sitting still breathing and doing body scans lol and if I was doing other productive things like writing I probably wouldn’t be so hard on myself. What I’ve noticed though is that I spend way too much time procrastinating and doing nothing. My head is saying I should be doing……………. instead of ……………… so I find myself resisting and doing nothing or nothing of any value.

Anyway, I’m back again and determined to try and find the passion and commitment that I had during my Year of Gratitude. Hopefully, it might rub off on a few other areas too 🙂

Today I am grateful for:

Love and all the wondrous things that have come from loving and being loved by so many beautiful people.

Our new home, our little patch of paradise.

My current home, 16 years have seen a lot of joy and sorrow and it will be hard to leave but I am so grateful that we have had the opportunity to stay in one place for so long.

Packing; finally a good reason to start sorting through 16 years of accumulated stuff.

Free pots, (thanks TIA) I’ve potted up 52 garlic plants, three strawberries, tomatoes, and herbs and am about to re-pot six English Oaks.

Pollyanna Grows Up ( I read this the other day and laughed so much)

The Running Man (I read this yesterday and laughed and cried all the way through. Beautiful story)

And while I know I could go on for hours, the last one for today is

Opportunity and Choice

Life is good.

Namaste

Raven

A.L.A.S

F.E.A.R

False Evidence Appearing Real

I came across this somewhere on Facebook one day and it has stuck in my head ever since. So many times I have found myself staring at a situation that is occurring in my life and not knowing how on earth I’m going to deal with it. Most of the time the thing that is holding me back is fear, false evidence that appears real. It never ceases to amaze me how our minds can turn a thought into what appears to be a reality and in turn something that is so frightening that it can stop us in our tracks and leave us immobilised and incapable of moving in any direction.

One area in my life that has been a constant challenge is writing. For as long as I can remember I have written; poetry, lyrics, short stories, or whatever took my fancy at the time. I have boxes of journals and poetry books, books that I’ve started writing by hand, numerous blogs that have been kept for years and then deleted, and files all over the place on my computer, so the actual process of writing doesn’t generally appear to be the problem. Where I find myself getting stuck is in tackling the one area of writing that I desperately want to achieve, writing a full-length book.

When I look at the ‘evidence’ that keeps getting in the way I can see how false it is. Even the fears that may have some basis for concern aren’t really anything that I haven’t dealt with in other areas of my life a dozen times or more. The problem I think is that I want this so much that the thought that I may not achieve it is stopping me from starting. If I never finish then I never have to face the possibility of failure right? As long as it’s a work in progress then there’s always tomorrow. This kind of thought process is so debilitating and I know I have to just suck it up and do it.

And if at the end of writing my book I find out it’s a piece of crap, then there’s always tomorrow to write another one.

Today I am grateful for curve balls, forks in the road, grit, determination, and hope.

Namaste

Raven

A.L.A.S

Last night I found out you had left this world behind. It’s been a long time since we spoke and I’ve missed you over the years. Maybe our paths weren’t meant to cross again, I’ll never know. What I do know is that I never forgot you, I never stopped loving you and nothing that happens, not now, not then, will change that.

Fare thee well my friend, I am truly grateful for everything you gave me xx

Namaste

Raven

A.L.A.S

I’ve been out of the blogging loop for a while now, so it’s only taken an hour for me to develop a headache from trying to remember how this site works. Somehow I managed to delete content that wasn’t meant to be deleted and I have a new page on here somewhere that only shows up if you hit search????? It doesn’t really matter lol as the main thing is that I’ve decided to commit to daily acts of gratitude again. If you haven’t read my About page, it explains where this all started. The missing page, ‘A Year of Gratitude’ is the posts from Facebook that I collated after I finished the year. I’m still editing parts of it so it’s going to be a work in progress. Once I figure out how this site works again I might even be able to put some of the photos back in.

Today I am grateful for love, for words, and for hope.

Namaste

Raven

A.L.A.S