Conclusions

  • Practicing gratitude seems expand my possibilities and my actuality – today i have said YES to life.
  • I have spent NO time thinking about mine or anyone else’s deficits.
  • My CNS has not melted in three days of 30+°C heat (J this is probably nothing to do with practicing gratitude but I am very grateful, nonetheless).

All day I have been thinking in terms of possibility. How I can say yes to life? This has kept my mind incredibly open and soft, and my mood incredibly light-hearted. I have achieved far more today than I would have thought was possible on a 37°C day partly because I didn’t exclude any possibility. As a consequence, practising gratitude has expanded my possibilities and my actuality – today I have said YES to life!.

Even after all these years of yoga, acceptance and surrender, I have still continued to spend more time than is healthy noticing and sometimes dwelling, on my deficits. Including Deficits in my personal skills and qualities, deficits in experience, career, success, income, friendships, chutzpah and, and, and… comparing myself to an impossible non-existent ideal that always seems to be personified by someone else. And in a strange way which I am sure is linked, the deficits of the organisations, pursuits, careers and pastimes that I have been engaged with.

Well, today I have spent NO time thinking about mine or anyone else’s deficits. Let me repeat that (because actually I can’t believe it), I have not spent one moment thinking about deficits, not one. Cool, huh? Even more exciting, I have been able to recognise this trait in my assessments without judgement. I feel forgiving and forgiven.

And although this may have no causal relationship with practicing gratitude, my CNS has NOT melted on a 37° day. I think this might be the first time in many years where my brain and spinal cord have not erupted in inflammation and my function descended into dysfunction due to heat. And I do feel deeply grateful today, and even weirder – no expectation for tomorrow, just here, just now.