GRATITUDE MONTH: DAY 26: “Piglet noticed that even though he had a Very Small Heart, it could hold a rather large amount of Gratitude.” ― A.A. Milne
Isn’t that the sweetest quote? I think so. I have been in love with the Pooh stories since I was about 2 years old. My first toy was a stuffed tiger I named Tigger. That was my nickname as a baby and it goes on today.
I have the books that speak to the spiritual Zen nature of the creatures found in those books. Maybe that was what drew me to them. They are lovely. I am grateful for A.A. Milne whose initials have become significant to some of us in a different way.
I once sat down and wrote a story about the characters in Pooh and how they related to folks we find in a recovery meeting. It was fun and came out pretty funny. I love to write spoofs like that…great creative exercise for my brain.
No matter what our life looks like, we have lots to be grateful for. The focus is the important thing. The shift that I have come to in these last few years is the one from being grateful for things and people and situations that please me, to the gratitude I can see and feel and express for the assholes and circumstances in my life that I fought and resisted.
Spent some time the last couple of days with a great person, one of my favorites. We discussed resistance a great deal. When I learn to embrace situations, people, lessons, and all the things in life that I don’t want to allow, much less embrace, I am free to learn from them and move on. If I don’t, I get to see that pattern repeat itself until I do. As far as I am concerned, it is much better to get it over with right away.
I spent too many years of my life on the assholes. I am ready for their teachings and lessons to be over. So, I embrace and let them go. Yay!
And the same is true of what I see in myself that I don’t always like right away. I can honestly own things I really don’t like about myself. I don’t shout these things from the mountain tops every day, but I can own up to them and talk about them without hiding my head in shame.
We all have flaws and beauty. When we can learn to see them both with the same acceptance, it is going to be a better time for all of us. The most painful thing we do in this life is judge…ourselves, others, events, situations…any of it.
Dr. Paul O. said that “there are no mistakes in God’s world”; and I should remember that my behaviors, although I am not proud of them all, have created who I am today. My life, all the events therein, and everything about me is the way it is supposed to be right now; and have been all along. It can be a stretch to believe it, but I do.
And then I must thank these things, these feelings, these ideas, these behaviors and attitudes for being what I needed in that moment and move on. I embrace myself with all the flaws I know and don’t know about, and move past them. They have served some purpose I may never know about, or that are totally glaring, and now I will move through that to the next thing. But I will be grateful and feel blessed by ALL of it. Okay!
Today it is a good thing to be alive and me and have any-sized heart, full of gratitude.
Dolphin Hug 