We Offer Gratitude, Peace and Love for the New Year

Last week we shared a holiday photo of us wishing everyone Peace and Love. Now the New Year is upon us, and what we wish for all of you is for peace to spread, one relationship at a time.

We feel an enormous sense of gratitude for life, for the opportunities to grow and share, and for our relationships.

It’s hard to know what to write about gratitude without sounding clichéd. You’ve all read about how it’s better to give than to receive. A recent article from a neuroscientist tells how gratitude increases the pleasure of altruism. Another Washington Post article about training to support the dying offers the exercise of living a day as though it were your last day on earth.

So the question is how do we see the glass as half full? How do we accentuate the positive? Walk on the sunny side? Find the silver lining? (Let me count the clichés.)

For years, Phil couldn’t accept the goodness in relationships because of a mirage of perfection. What a potent source of dissatisfaction! Even though this same power of the imagination is the source that creates art and inventions, in our personal life it can destroy our happiness by focusing on what is missing.

The antidote is being present. By being present, we see what exists. We are brought back in touch with our senses. And even though we may be faced with chronic pain or a broken clutch or a raging boss, much in our life and our relationships is sheer joy. It may not scream for attention like a surprise party; instead, it may whisper. It may be the pattern that fallen leaves have made. But it is there by the tens and hundreds and thousands. Look. Listen. Breathe it all in deeply. Be grateful.

So how can we go about spreading the realities of truth, beauty and goodness? How do we support their growth in our hearts and in the world?

It starts with a striving toward self-knowledge – the kind that helps us move away from a self-centered approach to interactions, and find a place of inclusiveness, of relatedness and service to others.

So, this is our call to action – feed your inner self so that you may feed those around you with that knowledge and that love.

It is time for all of us to match our actions to our words – to find service opportunities within our relationships, our communities, wherever we find ourselves, and to bring it, by example and sharing of this light, out into the world.

Take your thoughts and your words out into service to others. Listen to your brothers and sisters when they need to be heard. Notice them on the streets when they need to be seen. Practice being present with everyone. Celebrate together and embrace each other as often as you can.

Please add your comments at the bottom of the blog by clicking here, and listen to Phil reading this.

Successful Relationship Reading Corner

In this week's blog, we offered gratitude, peace and love for the New Year. Here are three articles on those themes that are both practical and inspiring.

Love is the Way: The Universal Path to Peace, Happiness, and Enlightenment "But the word love has been greatly overused in modern times to mean everything from romantic attachment and attraction to the way you care for your family and friends, to something you have a passion for or even just something you really like. So the rest of this post is dedicated to clarifying exactly what this means (and making it crystal clear) and showing you clearly and simply how you can begin to truly live and apply this wisdom in your everyday life."

The 11 Step Guide to Spreading Love "See your brothers and sisters all over the world as your extended family.  We all intrinsically have one ultimate goal — to live in joy, love, and peace.  Some have a strange way of showing it but they may be so lost in darkness that they have forgotten what radiance looks like.  It is up to you to show them the light instead of judging or criticizing their path.   Love is going to be the only solution to hatred, war, and destruction, not complaints and judgments."

12 Powerful Gratitude Practices That Bring Joy "Gratitude didn’t come naturally to me. If there had been a championship for complaining, I would have been a serious contender. For years I felt entitled to everything, including the kindness of others. This didn’t make me very happy, since it was always easy to find something or someone to complain about. The more critical I grew, the less appealing life seemed and the worse I got on with others. ... If I had continued living like that, I might have ended up complaining that water was too wet and the sky too blue."
 

Spreading peace one relationship at a time
Phil and Maude
 
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