Write with TLC

Every time I start to write this I get start hearing George Michael's voice singing "Charity is a coat you wear twice a year" from Praying for Time yet what I want to write about is being thankful... Sometimes I think thankfulness is something we put on like a scarf to go with that charity coat twice a year. I wonder... I wonder... Oh, God, I wonder why is that thankfulness only seems to matter in November? Why is it that charity only seems to matter in December? Why is it that we want peace on Earth and love for all mankind from Thanksgiving to Christmas? Then the rest of the year, we support war and violence and greed while we blame our fellow man for circumstances beyond their control. Why, oh, why? It seems like it's so hard for us to see the world around us through clear eyes. And then I wonder... I wonder... Oh, God, I wonder would we even bother to be thankful that one month a year if we didn't feel obligated   inspired by the approach of Thanksgiv...

Gratitude has become a bit of a buzzword for focusing on the positive in one's life. Technically, though gratitude is simply the state of being thankful; however, we often attach meaning to gratitude that often gives it a hint of the supernatural. When I started actively practicing gratitude in 2011, I had a purpose. I wanted to focus on the positive in my life in order to bring more positive into my life. I didn't quite realize there was already so much positive in my life I was downplaying or not noticing at all. The more I practiced gratitude, the more I realized what I was really practicing was noticing and embracing the positive in my life. The more I noticed and embraced the positive in my life, the more positive I found, but, as I also stated in The Dark Side of Gratitude , I also noticed the negative in my life more distinctly as well. As I noticed the positive in my life, I started working at cultivating more positive in my life. I worked at it. I discovered ...

Several years ago I embarked on a year long effort to bring more positivity into my life by focusing on gratitude . As part of this I meditated every morning on gratitude, posted daily, unique gratitude statements on Facebook, and made a gratitude list in my gratitude journal each evening. I thought this would be an enlightening, inspiring uplifting journey, and for the most part it was. So much so I have continued to do parts of the practice I put in place then. There came a point though when practicing gratitude exposed things that weren't working as well in my life as I'd thought, or at least wanted to believe. I shrugged it off at first and focused on the things that inspired gratitude. But, the more I focused on gratitude, the more I became aware of my tendency to ignore the negative things in my life. It was easier. It felt better. However, ignoring them didn't put me on a path to finding solutions. Even as I started to see some of the past events in my life thr...

I had a different post planned for today, but  this morning I read an email from  My Intent  promoting a  14 Day Self-Love Journey  that intrigued me enough to see what they were doing. The day one journal prompt was "What is love to you? What is your intention with this self-love journey?" The more I thought about it, the more I felt compelled to blog about the first question... "What is love to you?" "What is love to me?" "What is love?" For much of my life, I subconsciously equated love with possession and jealousy. Love was a weapon. Love was scary. Love was vulnerability. I also thought love was only love if it was reciprocated. Love was an emotion. Love was dreamy and romantic and giving and kind...  Love was something I had to earn.  Love was the reward I'd get for achieving perfection. Love was always... out there, just beyond my reach.  A few years ago I decided to live from a foundation of love. I wanted a more solid fo...

When I first thought about challenging myself to not by any clothes for myself for the entirety of 2018 toward the end of 2017, I shrugged it off. It would be no big deal IF I decided to do it, right? If I didn't do it, it also wouldn't be a big deal. Yet the idea stuck with me over the next few days. Then on December 28, 2017, as I placed an order for a couple of dresses to replace dresses I'd recently removed my closet, I kept thinking about the challenge. Did I really need those dresses? I mean really? I had a closet full of clothes. I wanted to be more mindful about my shopping moving forward. I wanted to have a closet with clothes I not only loved but wore. Later that day as I stood in front of my overflowing closet freaking out that I wouldn't have anything to wear if I embarked on this challenge, I took a deep breath. Then I looked at all those clothes I hadn't worn for months, years, or ever - some I still haven't. I felt a pull inside and push fr...

Dr. Fox and me Recently, while making my annual donation to a scholarship fund in honor of the scholarship I received that allowed me to attend Eastern Kentucky University ,  The Dr. James W. Fox Student Research Award jumped out at me. I didn't remember seeing it on the list before. I wondered if it was a fund honoring my former adviser and professor, Dr. James Fox. I did a quick Google search. I found his obituary which included a request for people to donate to the award fund in lieu of flowers. As I read about his 2008 death, I felt a tear slide down my cheek and a sense of sadness combined with gratitude and joy well up in my heart. I smiled.  My instructors, particularly my Corrections instructors, were an interesting group of people, but Dr. Fox was a special man. His obituary refers to his dedication to "his calling as an educator" and the way he "inspired commitment in his students." I can attest to both. Part of the way he inspired that commi...

I've been thinking a lot about what I deserve in life. Someone recently made me feel like I expect more out of life than I deserve. It wasn't intentional, but the conversation hit a nerve I thought long dead. Over the next few days, my thoughts returned to the idea more often than I'm happy admitting. I've been willing to settle for less than I deserve for much of my life because I thought I didn't deserve the good I really deserved. It's not that I didn't fight for what I projected I thought I deserved. The problem was I didn't really think I deserved what I demanded other people give me, so I never expected to actually receive it. When I did receive it, I questioned it, doubted it, and sometimes even, subconsciously, rejected it. I remember a short time during my high school/college years when I genuinely believed, at least to some degree, I deserved the best out of life and life would bring it my way if I just worked hard enough and stayed focus...