Gratitude is a word I’ve been tossing around a lot lately. I try to ask my kids what they feel grateful for every day. Answers vary. Today, it might be “My blue Ninjago guy”, or it might just as easily be “I’m thankful for my whole world, family, and friends, and my sister, and my Mama, and my Dada, and my dog, and my other dog, and my bird, and my food, etc, etc, etc.” Just now, my daughter came stumbling in after being put to bed, crying, and saying that she’s scared because someone might die, like from being shot by a gun. OK. Yes. Someone might die. But, no, I ask some of the right questions and give some advice. Can you really know that you or someone you love is going to die? “No.” So, all these things are just happening in your own head? “Yes.” Well that’s great news, I tell her. Let’s be grateful that no one is actually about to die, that you have a cozy bed to sleep in, that you have water and food, a family who loves you, friends, a great school, sweet pets, etc, etc, etc.
But most of all, I tell her to be grateful that there is one, and only one, thing in life that she is in control of…….her thoughts. AND the reason that she should be grateful for this is that it is ONLY her thoughts that can make her happy or unhappy.
The older I get, the more self-help books I read, the more podcasts I listen to, the more Yoga classes I attend, the more I understand this truth. Life happens. We have no control over life. We have no control over other people, our bodies, our circumstances. The ONLY thing we can control is our own thoughts. SO, that means we can decide how to interpret all the stuff that we have no control over. We can decide to be happy or not. We can decide to be scared of what might happen, or we can decide to be thoroughly grateful for all of the wonderful and miraculous things that are actually happening around us all the time. I am grateful that we can make sure our kids start learning this a little sooner than we are.
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