Good Morning!
It's Sunday, and I am eternally grateful for my cozy, Hygge, toasty, hot-melted-butter-between-pancakes feel of my warmed up mattress pad! I am staying in bed to drink chai, read, study, and play online!
I am grateful my rebounding health as I felt I was coming down with the Austin Plague that's been circling me like buzzards waiting for carrion, for a month. Fever, malaise, and congestion has minimized to a bit of runny nose and infrequent cough! This means wellness remains and I will not get the full-on Austin Avian-like Flu that seemingly EVERYONE around me has suffered! Yay!
I'm grateful for fun times with work peeps, who are awesome and authentic and amazing. Sometimes I just listen in wonder when one of my co-mentors speak, while thinking to myself: "Wow, ____ is such an incredible human and I want to know him/her better! I am so lucky to have _____ in my life!" I am really, really 정말로 gratefule to work with these amazing, talented, kind, brilliant, creative, dedicated peeps! LOVE!
I'm grateful that I'm determined (finally) to take my last damn state certification test next week, despite the fear that I'll fail and the feeling of not being ready due to my diligent, rebellious, and successful avoidance of studying for it! Aargh! I'm going to take it and take the consequences and try to feel confident. In other words, fake it! I just want it over with! The good side, is that I can retake any portion I do not pass. I passed the first two, my friends remind me, so I should pass this as well! We will see!
I'm also grateful for my confidence and self-possession. To be honest, my body has gotten fat and slothful and I don't feel attractive as a result, but I'm out there, "dating" again, despite what would normally hold me back.
I'm grateful that I am also determined to get my running and workouts back on track. Consistency, dedication, and sankalpa (will power and determination) to get up early and work out will get my daily habits back into my healthy, active lifestyle!
Overall, my multiples of gratitudes are to my essence: I'm grateful for who I am and the life I have built. I see people around me with abundant wealth who are unhappy. I see people around me with health challenges that have changed their life. I feel lucky, blessed, and grateful to have a healthy body, work I love that provides for my needs, and a great life.
I enjoy multiplicities of abundancies in frequencies! Ha! Plus, I make up these great new words and use ellipses too often... because I like them!

P.S. I almost forgot! I bought a pair of "new" light-blocking curtains at the local resale shop and I LOVE them; they block out light in the AM, and they are also this lovely flaming hibiscus color that complements and contrasts with the blues and greys in my room. The color aligns with the feng shui directions of red/pinks/yellows in which I have my room organized, as well! Whee!

It's days like these that I can feel a dramatic shift in my sense of connection and joy! I am grateful. simple awareness and recognition of gratitude turns my whole view around. If I awaken feeling tired or sullen; a step back to look at my life, a few moments spent in searching for reasons to feel grateful and - BAM! I feel it. I am it. I am filled to the brim with love for all and so much appreciation. This is exactly why I started this year-long exercise in daily gratitude, so that I could remember--every day, that I have at least one reason to feel good about life and to be grateful and happy!

What to do when sick or injured or moody?

How does one maintain a daily practice of gratitude when not feeling happy, satisfied, or balanced, but rather, ill, grumpy, or in pain?

Gratitude certainly doesn't come easy on days when I have the "blahs". Pulling a muscle almost immediately upon return from vaca, to go from daily running to flat on my back and missing work. Being surrounded by people at work and home who have been suffering for weeks from the flu, having fought it off for this long--and now I wake up with a sore throat.

...These are days that I do not feel especially grateful, and yet, I can still find many aspects of life and myself for which I can be thankful. It definitely takes extra effort, and I've obviously missed several days, but here goes. The thing is, these are the days when I need it most! I'm naturally grateful when I wake up happy and content; life is going well and everything is easy. Then it's easy to yawn, stretch, and as I smile inside and out, think: What a great day! But what about days when I long to keep my eyes closed and shut out the world for lack of sleep, worrisome thoughts, or an ill body? How do I push beyond and find my will to remain grateful--to remember to stay grateful? I just do it! Like now!

So here I am, grateful for remembering that I need to find gratitude when I feel the exact opposite desire; grateful for a good place to live with roof over my head, affordable rent, and Hygge; grateful to have the gift of work I love, where I work with people I love; grateful for financial prosperity that allows me freedom; grateful for a healthy body that functions pretty darn well most of the time; grateful for friends that remind me to visualize what I hope for instead of being disappointed I don't have it; grateful for new friends who remind me to stay the course and old friends who comfort me when I can't; grateful for the sense of security and groundedness that has returned to my life; grateful for family that loves me despite my quirks and temperament (yeah, that's you Dad); grateful for my effusive creativity that I get to express in my work; grateful for supportive co-workers and loving school families; grateful for ability to run again because my knee is healing; grateful to have renewed my yoga sadhana at Satchidananda Ashram; grateful that I am able to visit the ashram; grateful for the passé temps I enjoy; and finally, grateful for feeling good and having survived the darkness.

Now, that's exactly what I needed! Now I can "rise and shine" to exclaim: "Life is great, what a great day"!