" A Hundred Blessings ... "

When Love comes suddenly and taps
on your window, run and let it in, but first
shut the door of your reason,
even the smallest hint chases love away,
like smoke that drowns the freshness
of the morning breeze.
To reason, Love can only say
the way is barred, you can’t pass through,
but to the lover it offers a hundred blessings.
Before the mind decides to take a step,
Love has reached the seventh heaven.
Love has climbed the Holy Mountain.
I must stop this talk now and let
Love speak from its nest of silence.

~ Mirabai Ceiba ~ A Hundred Blessings ~

***

In every moment there is always the opportunity to be grateful for the good.  Often, this can stop you from becoming too unhappy about bad things in your life.  In another words, count your blessings.

We have a choice, we always have a choice ... count your blessings OR count your problems.  Gratitude makes us happier ... at least that is what many spiritual traditions maintain.  Yet how is this possible when it feels like the bad outweighs the good?  

I have realized that I was always focusing on the negative in my life ... my health, my finances, my popularity, etc.  But I am also learning that I can change my mind channels ... from negative to positive.  And if this doesn’t work, and I just focus on the removing the negative, the positive is already there, so it will just take up that empty space.  

You see we all have “black belts” in misery.  We are SO good at looking for the worst case scenario.  Why?  Because we are programmed and conditioned to have poor expectations, to fail and to be well miserable.  Our society is a “fear based” society.  Therefore to “count your blessings” is really hard work.  

Yet, focusing on your blessings and moving out the negative shrinks your problems, and soon you can forget, well even if it is for that one moment.  But that moment is so precious because it is truly all we have ... the present moment.

Also I have realized that the decision to count my blessings versus count my problems sets the tone for my entire day.  My mind replays my blessings all day long because I must count my blessings or my blessings will not count.

“Each day you need to remind yourself of your blessings, 

or you will forget they are there.”

Recently I read a cool analogy regarding spreadsheets and life, and since I work with spreadsheets a great deal, this made a whole lot of sense to me.  It goes like this ... “for most people, the spreadsheet of life doesn’t contain blessings.  The rows and columns are either empty or filled with problems.  You need to check your mental spreadsheet to see what you are counting because most people are experts at counting their problems and never get around to counting their blessings.”

So maybe it’s not just about staying positive ... maybe it is just about what you focus on ... from a place of what is wrong to a place of what is strong.

“write your sorrows in sand and your blessings in stone”