The Wednesday Warm- up

If you live in the USA then you know that Thanksgiving is this Thursday and we all know that Thanksgiving is all about giving thanks. At least it is supposed to be, even if for many it means lots of food, family and football and often all this activity distracts us from spending much time giving thanks. I want to share a simple way of being that makes giving thanks automatic.

Now notice that I wrote simple and not easy. Simple & easy are not synonymous and therefore not interchangeable. All the same, this is a simple exercise that with regular practice, can become your habitual way of being.

So if you are up for the challenge, it starts on Wednesday and all you have to do is not complain about anything, and I do mean anything. If your food is cold, burned, bland or whatever don’t complain about it be grateful that you have food (and maybe especially grateful that you have other food options more to your liking in the fridge). If you come home from a long day of work and the house is a mess, resist complaining about having to clean it up and be grateful to have a home to clean & the ability to clean it. My personal favorite this week is being grateful that I have feet and those feet will take me wherever I want to go (new shoes can really make you remember that you have feet can’t they?) And while you are at it be grateful to have a job to come home from.

When you truly embrace this exercise then you quickly find that thoughts of complaint lead to insight about what in that situation is something to be grateful for (because that little voice in your head will point out that you are complaining and urge you to turn it around) and when you do that you start to make a shift. You become happier because you see that there is a lot of great things in and about your life. When you complain about anything you are focused on what you don’t like, what is not good, and that blocks your ability to see what is good and this steals your joy for life. You don’t arrive at happiness, you find it all along the way but not if you are spending all your time trying to find the complaint department.

So give it a go; don’t complain about anything on Wednesday and see for yourself that you will enjoy the day much more. Then go for another 24 hours of no complaining and repeat until…..