Friday, November 11, 2011

My Journey of Gratitude - Day 10

Ten days into my 10 minutes of gratitude and my mind is telling me how bored it is already. Because of my commitment to these 30 days, I decide to sit in gratitude for the boredom--and so I do. I'm just so grateful to be alive that 10 minutes of boredom doesn't seem so bad. And I was curious as to why today my mind was bored. Why not yesterday or why not next week. What was it about today in particular that I was bored.

Wasn't very long before I had the answer. My mind began running funny images through my mind to distract me from thinking. Images of the Stay Puff marshmallow man from the movie Ghostbuster, images from other funny movies that I love, and then drifting into childhood memories of fun and playfulness. Playing 'kick the can' with all the neighborhood kids in the summer just as the sun was going down. Softball in our backyard, catching minnows in the creek that ran behind our property--many times of laughter and fun.

I realized my mind was showing me that there is more to Life than just sitting in my head--that living in gratitude means LIVING--as in being outside of myself and actually living in the world, not just my head. So as each image, each memory flashed through my vision I felt something heal within me and replaced with something new and fresh within. It was like each happy thought opened a door to more freedom and my desire to allow my inner life and outer life to be the same increased.

For those of you who know me, you know that I tend to be on the serious side and don't 'let my hair down' very often. Not that I'm a stick-in-the-mud or anything, but I guess I had separated parts of my life from other parts and kept the playfulness and fun for only certain times. That all changed as I saw the dam that separated my inner and outer worlds burst open and, once again, my Inner Chicken surfed the waves with the theme song to Hawaii 5-0 blaring in my head.

The only appropriate response was to laugh out loud and be thankful for my life because--really--how many of you have an Inner Chicken?

So today my Inner Chicken and I are grateful for Life. And I think we just might spend the day surfing the waves of gratitude and seeing where it takes us.

In gratitude, Bonnie   

No comments: