Daily Aligning with Love, Abundance, and Peace #359

I’m grateful for everything that has led me to be here now. I’ve been living an incredible journey, not just for the last 358 days that I’ve been writing this series, but my whole life. I have survived many interesting twists and turns. I’ve struggled through some very dark times, but I am who I am in this moment because of having been through it all. I can give what I give because of my experiences. I can have empathy and compassion for other humans because of the choices I’ve made to heal any wounds that surface along the way. I’ve gained the wisdom to embrace my light and my dark and love all of me. I know longer feel the need to deny any part of my experience as not serving my highest good. I’m taking no experience in my life for granted. I’m grateful for everything that got me here and allows me to live this life of mine—one precious moment at a time. I’ve stopped feeding the “Why me” story and I’m investing in the “for me” story instead. It’s MY CHOICE and that is so FREEING!

Today, I commit to appreciating the experiences that brought me to this moment. I’m sitting here writing these words and thinking about how over the last 358 days I’ve been able to come up with topics, ideas, tools, memories, and enlightening experiences to help me align daily with the energy of love, abundance, and peace. Many of my experiences were NOT pretty and/or easy, but they are all mine and they served me in so many beautiful ways. I love that my experiences have helped me to understand people on a deeper level and fed my passion to learn more. I’m a better human and mom, because I’ve healed from my past traumas and can openly share my experiences without it causing more emotional wounds to open up and splatter on innocent bystanders. I know how dangerous it is to project open wounds out. Being grateful for the experiences and making them work for me is A LOT less painful of a road.

Today is about being in gratitude for where my road has taken me.

  • I look at the way my mind is processing what comes in and I’m so incredibly grateful that I can now clearly spot when I’m telling myself a painful story.
  • I can quickly go to tapping into what I’m actually feeling without the story and allow the feelings to work through me to open me up to better possibilities.
  • I’m practicing sharing my feelings without blame, but in the acknowledgment that if I don’t, I’m doing myself and any relationship I’m in a disservice.
  • I’ve discovered that I don’t have to attach to anyone’s story that is trying to get me to align with the energy of fear, lack, and separation.
  • I can speak clearly and affectively about what feels right and what doesn’t for my life.
  • I can stand up for myself when I feel my boundaries have been pushed.
  • I can change thoughts and beliefs that are no longer serving me.
  • I have tools to support my wellness.
  • I use self-care regimens that work!
  • I know how to have a healthy intimate relationship with a man.
  • I know how to help others without ignoring my own self-care.
  • I trust that whoever shows up and whoever doesn’t is exactly how it is supposed to be in this moment.
  • I trust that if I’m the one available, I’m the one who is supposed to be there for someone else.
  • I am fully responsible and accountable for the energy I put out into the world.
  • I have healthy and productive self-talk (this was a HUGE one for me)
  • I can question my own thinking and come up with solutions that are aligned with the energy of love, abundance, and peace.

I feel like I can keep going, but the point is without EVERYTHING that happened to me, I would have done specific things differently. I love that I’ve read every book and gone to every seminar, class, and workshop that I have. I’m so happy I met all the people in AL-ANON that I did and was able to work through the 12-steps, which got me comfortable going inside for answers. I’m grateful I got to try so many different kinds of mental, emotional, and physical therapies to help me get out of my own way. I’m grateful I was able to go back to school to gain even more understanding of why humans do what they do. Everything on my path led me to this moment. In this moment, I feel fully aligned with the energy of love, abundance, and peace. I feel amazing!

With Love, Abundance, and Peace,

©Rachael Wolff 2021, Author of Letters from a Better Me

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Daily Aligning with Love, Abundance, and Peace #221

I’m grateful to be on this journey of life. Many years ago, someone told me that wisdom comes in our 40’s. I’m officially midway through my 40’s and I’m amazed in how much I’ve learned and am able to share with others. Being a multiple trauma survivor, I’ve been through all kinds of different forms of healing, recovery, painful awakenings, and so much personal and spiritual growth. I’m grateful for all the wisdom I’ve gained no matter how painful the journey through it has been. I’m here living the life I am because I never gave up on living it as a better me. I didn’t make myself better through anything I accumulated outside of myself, just like a caterpillar moving into the chrysalis, everything needed to live as a butterfly is within. Sometimes it takes becoming the mush in the chrysalis in order to re-build, but our power to create our best lives is always within us. It’s in where we CHOOSE to put our energy moment to moment.

That’s my perspective, and this is one of the reasons I love this incredible journey of life. I can choose to believe in perspectives that align me with the energy of love, abundance, and peace or fear, lack, and separation. If I find a perspective no longer serves me being the best version of myself, I can take a journey of discovery to find a perspective that fits me NOW. I continue to learn, grow, change, shift, and transform. That is my journey, and I love it.

Today, I commit to enjoying the journey. The journey is a one moment at a time adventure. When I get ahead of myself, I can quickly move into the feeling overwhelm which is submerged in the energy fear, lack, and separation. If I want to truly enjoy the journey, I have to stay in it, one step at a time. Enjoying the journey is what it means to live in the energy of love, abundance, and peace for as much time as I choose. Today, my focus is on staying here in this moment.

Life is a series of moments. It’s our job to figure out what we want to do with them. Whether we hold on, let them go, embrace them, release them, learn from them, be prisoner of them, and on and on. What we do with the moments is our choice. Today, I’m choosing to enjoy them.

With Love, Abundance, and Peace,

©Rachael Wolff 2021

Author of Letters from a Better Me: How Becoming an Empowered Woman Transforms the World (click title to learn more on getting your copy in audiobook, audio CD, ebook, or paperback from most major online book retailers)

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When Life Gets Messy Declutter

Whether life gets messy in your own heads or around us, the process of physically decluttering our lives is cathartic. When we declutter, we make room for peace. We also make room to open new doors, and see the importance of closing doors that no longer serve us.

One of the most obvious examples I have of how this works is my own bed. When I was fearful and not ready for any real relationship, I cluttered my bed with my art, research, books, and writings. I made just enough space for me to sleep, but not even straight. As I started doing the work I needed to do to open myself up, I actively decluttered my bed. Slowly, I cleared the way all the clutter and sharp edges. I made room for love to come in…and it did.

Make space for the life you want. When we declutter both mentally and physically, life becomes less messy and more consciously designed.

With Love and Gratitude,

Rachael Wolff ©2020

24 Days Until the Release of Letters from A Better Me!

For other purchasing options, go to https://fromalovingplace.com/book/.

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90-Day A Better Me Series: Day 85 – Giving People Tools to Build From A Loving Place

90-Day A Better Me Series

Part III: Living the Journey

Making the Now Count: Rebuilding our Lives

Day 85: Giving People Tools to Build From A Loving Place

“Creativity is the person-centered process of imagining possibilities and taking embodied expressive action to make your ideas real.”

-Marta Davidovich Ockuly, PhD, 2019

On this 90-Day A Better Mejourney we have covered a lot of ground. We have looked at what holds us back (Part I), what launches us forward (Part II), and now we are well into living the journey (Part III). In these final days of the journey we will be covering how to consciously project love (light), engage in what we stand for, embracing what we manifest, being the change, and leading by example.  There is one tool very important tool you will need to engage if you want the best results and to completely submerge into life as a better you—CREATIVITY!

Take in the definition of creativity above given by Dr. Davidovich Ockuly. REALLY take it in. If you have any thoughts or perspectives of truth within you that tells you that you aren’t a creative person, read this definition again and again. YOU ARE CREATIVE! Each of us has a purpose where we need our creativity to shine through in order to bring our purpose into fruition. We make our soul’s purpose come alive when we engage in our creativity.

When we block our creativity with beliefs such as, I’m not a creative person. We sabotage our gifts; we create unnecessary blocks for ourselves. We conjure a struggle where their doesn’t need to be one. We are creative. We were made creative. We just need to find our own unique creativity. When we do that—

We find our power! We use creativity to better our lives and give others seeds to better theirs on a daily basis. What we do may not be a piece of fine art, a best-selling book, viral memes or videos, mind-blowing photography, a jaw-dropping performance, and/or an award-winning garden. We use creative to project and manifest AWE in our lives. The work is engaging in our creativity.

If we want to give people tools to build from a loving place, we not only have to be creative, we have to inspire the creativity within them. We don’t know what someone else’s creative path is, but what we do know is if we help others see themselves clearly, we are giving them the tools to go within and see their gifts. Here’s an example: I’ve read countless books, gone to thousands of workshops and classes, had many challenging life experiences, practiced spirituality and religion, and experimented with using my creative mind in all kinds of way. I needed to do all those things to create the 90-Day A Better Me Series. I had no idea when I started my blog that I would be led to write this. It just kept unfolding, because I trusted the process. I was open to the possibility of giving others tools to live better. I had to go through the process to see the possibilities in order to write everything that has come to me.

When we engage our creativity our minds are open. When we suppress our creativity our minds close. We don’t see possibility. If we don’t see possibility we are stuck in the cycle of insanity. When we are open—WE LEARN, GROW, AND EXPAND. When we do that, we have the ability to give people tools to build from a loving place.

 

With Love and Gratitude,

 

Rachael Wolff ©2019

 

P.S. I wanted to give my former professor, Dr. Marta Davidovich Ockuly, a special thank you for this beautiful definition of creativity. Thank-you for being who you are and creating what you do. You are an inspiration.

Today’s Letter from A Better Me: 90-Day A Better Me Letters Series: Day 85- Using My Creativity to Help People Find Their Tools to Build From A Loving Place

 

 

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90-Day A Better Me Series: Day 84 -Keeping the Toxic Energy Out of Our Internal Homes

90-Day A Better Me Series

Part III: Living the Journey

Making the Now Count: Rebuilding our Lives

Day 84: Keeping the Toxic Energy Out of Our Internal Homes

“Life shrinks or expands in proportion to one’s courage.”

-Anais Nin

Once we bring awareness to our darkness and take responsibility for it, we can shine light on any toxic energy hidden within the walls of our internal homes. On Day 83, I gave “6 Steps to Transforming the Darkness within Our Internal Homes”.    Darkness will show up, because we all have dark corners and shadows there to teach us on our journeys. We learn so much from the darkness within us. Yesterday, I talked about cleaning up the toxic energy and build-up that the darkness exposes when we decide to turn our lights on in the dark rooms. Today, we are expanding on that concept to focus on how to keep the toxic energy out of Internal homes. This isn’t a boot camp, 90-day, 6-month, and/or yearlong submersion program. There is no short-term fix for a lifelong learning process.

10 Steps to Keeping Toxic Energy Out of Your Internal Home

  1. STAY PRESENT! The toxic seed can only be planted, grow, and spread if you get stuck in your dark stories of the past and a fear-filled unknown future. When you get out of your fear-based stories, you don’t germinate the seed. You can stop it at the source when it gets handed to you.
  2. Stay AWARE! If you spot darkness within yourself, work through it. Do NOT run away or numb (addiction) it. Those methods turn darkness into toxic energy. Instead of learning and expanding, you avoid and shrink. If you are blaming, shaming, or judging someone else for your darkness—You still have work to do! That toxic energy will spread if you don’t shine light on it.
  3. CHECK-IN WITH YOUR PERSPECTIVES OF TRUTH. Make sure they are aligned with the light within you. A great intention is to shine your light on any darkness inside of you.
  4. KEEP DOING THE WORK! Your self-care regimen (Day 73) is an essential piece for ensuring that you don’t allow toxic energy into your internal home to fester, grow, and spread.
  5. KEEP YOUR LIGHT ON! Like mold, toxic energy grows in the dark hidden walls within your home. Keeping your light on means you are using the tools and techniques you’ve learned along the way to spot sources where there are leaks that can cause a build-up. Make sure you know which tools to use to help you keep your light on (i.e. prayer, tapping, meditation, worship, yoga, dance, writing, swimming, nature exploration, etc.). Only you can know which tools work best for you to help you keep your light on at all times. You have to truly connect and align with your actions or your light dims.
  6. SHINE BRIGHT! Keep your light in the energy of gratitude. Gratitude’s light energy is vast and expansive. It is the light of abundance. When you operate from a place of gratitude, you are running on a full tank. Your light will guide you and keep you focused on the best you have to offer the world.
  7. LIVE FROM A LOVING PLACE. When you live your life from a loving place both internally and externally your darkness will stay your teacher, but it won’t grow into toxic energy. Your love will simply dry out the toxic seed so that it’s purified.
  8. DO YOUR BEST! You are here to learn. You will be the teacher and/or the student many times over in this life. You will be given some lessons that were inspired by the light and others that have to be learned through your darkness. If you learn the lesson, you don’t have to repeat it. If there are deeper lessons to hit, just keep going and doing your best. The blessings that come from learning are beautiful. No one is meant to do this life perfectly. You need to stop expecting it from others and yourself. If you do the best you can WITHOUT excuses or copouts: your life will be better; your contributions to your family, friend, and community will be better; and the world will be better. A Better you equals a better world to live in.
  9. REPEAT! If you want to keep the toxic energy out of your internal home you will have to repeat these steps over and over. It won’t come out the same way every time, so don’t expect a specific result. Just know when you take care of yourself and stay present, you have the ability to do the best you can in every moment. Trust your journey!
  10. MAKE SPACE FOR CHANGE, GROWTH, AND EXPANSION! When you are on the journey of A BETTER ME, you will change, grow, and expand. Some people will fall off your path and others will come onto to it. Don’t try to hold onto anyone or anything that is not meant to go with you on this path because that can create toxic energy when you are holding on too tight to what you’ve outgrown. Trust your path! Don’t try to force people to walk through doors that they aren’t ready for. They might not be meant to come with you. If they are tied into their own darkness and/or toxic energy and you don’t give them a toxic hand to hold onto, their energy won’t match yours anymore. They become that flip side of the magnet. That goes the same way for jobs and lifestyles. Make the space for your new inner world to show through so that toxic energy has no space to grab onto.

 

With Love and Gratitude,

 

Rachael Wolff ©2019

Today’s Letter from A Better Me: 90-Day A Better Me Letters Series: Day 84 – Keeping the Toxic Energy Out of My Internal Home

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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90-Day A Better Me Series: Day 83 – Taking Responsibility for Inviting Dark Energy into Our Internal Homes

90-Day A Better Me Series

Part III: Living the Journey

Making the Now Count: Rebuilding our Lives

Day 83: Taking Responsibility for Inviting the Dark Energy into Our Internal Homes

“I think we are all advised to keep on nodding terms with the people we used to be, whether we find them attractive company or not. Otherwise they turn up unannounced and surprise us, come hammering on the mind’s door at 4 A.M. of a bad night and demand to know who deserted them, who betrayed them, who is going to make amends.”

-Joan Didion

We are the only ones who can invite dark toxic energy into our internal homes. We are the only ones who can turn our homes into dilapidated shacks by not taking care of them. No one is to blame for how we feel inside of us, but we are responsible. The outside world may take away choices from specific situations and we may be led down some paths that our mere physical survival is a miracle—Inside we have choices. We can write whatever story we want about our internal lives. We can connect and/or disconnect to any perspective of truth, story, feeling, and/or thought. We just have to be open enough to see that inside us is where true freedom lies.

In Part II, I wrote about accepting our pasts and releasing the unknown future. The more we can get into the NOW, the less likely that those stories from the past and the attachments to some unknown future will be used to tear apart our internal homes. Trauma therapy uses techniques to help detach a person from the story of their trauma. This doesn’t mean the trauma didn’t happen, but the story of it is what keeps it hurting us now even if the actual trauma happened decades ago.

When we let these stories live inside of us, we are living within a dilapidated shack that needs a re-model to make it the internal home of our dreams. The problem is when our internal world has a dilapidated shack at the center of it; we invite dark and toxic energy into our internal world on a regular basis. We actually are comfortable in that energy because that is where we internally live. We attract people in the physical world who will bring us the energy we feed on to comfortably live within our internal worlds. If we are attached to an internal world filled with chaos, we attract chaos. If we are attached to an internal world filled with fear, shame, blame, guilt, shame, judgment, hate, and vengeance—YOU GOT IT! The Universe will give you what you are asking by what you are projecting out. If your words to the Universe don’t match what is going on inside of you, what is going on inside of you will trump any words you speak. The darkness we invite in is our teacher for some VERY important lessons.

We are responsible for any darkness in our internal homes or dilapidated shacks. Every home will have dark spots, but if we are willing to see them, shine the light on them, and clean up that area where the darkness touched—WE HEAL!  We learn the lesson the teacher brought us. We get better! We strengthen the light within us.

Part of the process to being a better me is being able to see our own darkness with clarity. Our darkness has a beautiful purpose. It can serve us if we are willing to look at it instead of letting it grow, fester, and spread. When we attract someone to our lives that shows us our internal chaos, we have the opportunity to clean up our own darkness. We can’t assign this cleanup, remodel, and/or gut job to anybody else. If we want to change, we have to take the responsibility to look at ourselves when presented by the darkness in our physical world. If we are attaching to it, we bring it inside of us and we’ve invited it in.

6 Steps to Transforming the Darkness within Our Internal Homes

  1. Recognize the dark energy festering inside of you that was triggered by an outside source (person, animal, event, object, etc.). How are you responsible for inviting this energy in? What about this outside source created your own darkness to stir up inside of you? What about this source are you attaching to?
  2. See thought options that can shine light on your darkness. Don’t focus on changing your thoughts here, just look at your options of thoughts. What thoughts could bring peace, calm, joy, compassion, empathy, trust, faith, hope, freedom, positivity, purpose, etc. to the dark room in your home? These are your cleanup products and tools to help you fix-up any space the darkness affected. Once you know your options…
  3. Choose an action to help you turn your light on. The light switch can be prayer, dance, meditation, yoga, conscious breathing, mindfulness practices, walking, consciously exploring nature, and the list goes on and on. Many of these tools have been mentioned throughout the series.
  4. Spot the toxic waste left behind from past darkness. Be careful because toxic waste can be tricky to handle. It likes to spread poison within our homes making the structure weak. Like mold, it can hide inside our walls. The more open we are to let the darkness pass through us, the more we will be able to see any toxic spots that are trying to linger, fester, grow and spread. These are those deep belief systems (perspectives of truth) that are latching on to keep the dark thoughts that were triggered alive. The thoughts that were triggered are exposing some of the toxins left behind from long ago they show themselves as entitlement, envy, greed, sloth, vengeance, cruelty, victimhood, and rage—Just to name a few. All of these are derivatives of FEAR.
  5. START CLEANING! You see it; now clean it up with the products and tools you’ve been given. The more you get these toxic energies cleaned out, the closer you get to living and leading a purpose-filled life with a deep connection to your Divine source. Your light gets brighter the more you clean out.
  6. Be grateful for what the dark energy within you exposed. Be grateful for the teacher and the lesson. Now, the old you might have sunk into the depths of shame and guilt when you invited dark energy into your home. You might have contributed to making rooms darker and turning off more lights to the point where things around you began to fall apart and crumble. The better you has the opportunity to grow and expand from the exposed darkness. You have learned how to shine your light effectively into your home and find the secrets hidden in the walls. This is something to be EXTREMELY grateful for.

We now can create an even better space than we had before. We took responsibility for our mess and cleaned it up! So embrace the darkness and what it shows us. Fighting it and/or numbing it (addictions) will only make it stronger. We want to learn from what it has to show us. We want it to help us spot the areas we need to clean up and re-purpose. You have all the products and tools you need in this very moment. The more you use the tools you already have, the more that will become available to you in order to grow and expand from the place you are.

If you are reading this piece separately, I invite you to go back and see what you’ve missed in the series. The 90-Day A Better Me Series is like a puzzle. You want to have all the pieces to see the whole picture. Here’s a quick link to the category so that you can go back and explore what you’ve missed: https://fromalovingplace.com/category/90-day-a-better-me-series/

For best results: I suggest reading the series all the way through. You may find that by doing this you are led to people, places, and/or things that open up new doors and pathways to lead you to be living a purpose-filled life—Miracles abound! You just have to take the journey and trust that at this moment, you are exactly where you are meant to be.

 

With Love and Gratitude,

 

Rachael Wolff ©2019

Today’s Letter from A Better Me: 90-Day A Better Me Letters Series: Day 83 – Taking Responsibility for Inviting the Dark Energy into My Internal Home

 

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90-Day A Better Me Series: Day 76 – Using Perspective Tools to Navigate Our Relationships

90-Day A Better Me Series

Part III: Living the Journey

Making the Now Count: Rebuilding our Lives

Day 76: Using Perspective Tools to Navigate Our Relationships

“Each time you are tempted to become angry, or jealous, or fearful and you challenge that feeling, you empower yourself.”

-Gary Zukav

In Part II, I covered the topic of perspective (Days 42-46). We can’t use the tools of perspective until we understand how our perspectives of truth affect our lives. Until we understand about perspectives we want to see us as right and them as wrong. This view is a dark path that leads to fear, anger, hate, resentment, jealousy, revenge, envy, and codependency. We ALL know the effects of these things on our relationships.

Using perspective tools to navigate our relationships opens us up to hear what our family members, romantic partners, friends, coworkers, bosses, clients, and others are saying and where they are coming from. The more we can use our perspective tools the healthier we will be in our relationships, because as we ALL know NOBODY is going to agree with the when, where, how and why of everything we do, say, and feel. Just like, we won’t ALWAYS agree with someone else’s choices.

Using perspective tools is away to reduce the stress of not seeing things from the same angle, because really, that is all it is. We will never have the same exact view of life as any other person. We ALL have the journey each of us are meant to have, no two will ever be exactly the same. If we plan on taking any kind of relationship path with a person, the best we can do is be open to try to understand. It doesn’t mean we have to agree or change our ways, but by understanding our perspectives of truth, then making the effort to understand theirs—There is peace. Communication will improve, but we will talk about that a little later in the series. For now, we will focus on how to use perspective tools to navigate our relationships.

5 Ways You Can Use Perspective Tools

  1. We are either interpreting the moment from a place of love (light) or fear (darkness). The first step is to look at what you and the person you’re communicating with are projecting, love or fear. If either party is projecting fear, question where the fear is coming from inside.
  2. We ALL have a story we are telling. No matter what happens there are lots of ways to write our stories. When we don’t like the way we feel, think, and/or act we can choose a different way. We give the power to our stories. We decide if our story is going to be led by love or fear. How do we want our character to treat the secondary character in front of us?
  3. Try to see from the perspective of the other person. This means you have to ask a lot of questions to figure it out. Don’t tell the person how they should feel, think, or act. Ask questions to uncover why they are feeling, thinking, and/or acting the way they are. If you take the time to understand where they are coming from it’s easier for them to hear you when you explain where you are coming from.
  4. Speak in terms of perspective. You need an understanding of your perspective of truth that works in your life. Their perspective of truth might work in their life. You can ask: Does thinking the way you do bring joy and peace to your life? If it doesn’t, and your perspective of truth does bring joy and peace to your life, you are now open to explain without telling them they HAVE to change. The choice is theirs. It all depends on the perspectives we choose to believe. If your perspective doesn’t bring you peace and joy, maybe the other person may have perspectives you may want to implement in your life.
  5. KEEP QUESTIONING YOUR THOUGHTS!!! Please, if you find yourself blaming, shaming, and judging others or yourself— Go back to Part I (Days 1-30) of the 90-Day A Better Me Seriesand work through what is keeping you from having healthy relationships with others. The more we question our thinking, the better we will be.

If we use these tools, we start getting real honest with ourselves about the people we are inviting into our lives. We start noticing the energy they are bringing with them and how we feel when we are around them. If they are large sources of darkness, the more we spot it, the more we can protect ourselves from it. We will get more into that later. Like we talked about yesterday, we first have to stay present with the person standing in front of us. Once we are present, we see perspectives of truth clearly.

Once we see that we are all just interpreting life through our own unique perspective, we stop taking it so personally when people don’t agree with ours. We can question our perspectives of truth without feeling violated. It becomes much easier to say, we just see things from a different perspective and that’s okay. This is why mine works for me… If yours works for you and brings you peace and joy believing what you do—GREAT!

After we learn to navigate our relationships through the use of perspective tools, it makes it much easier to see which relationships work and which ones don’t in our lives. The more peaceful we remain in someone else’s chaos, the more the energy shifts and changes. The other person will either find a place of calm with you, or they may start unconsciously trying to stir up more chaos to break the relationship. Either way, you will be blessed the calmer and more peaceful you stay. The Law of Attraction will work in your favor.

 

With Love and Gratitude,

 

Rachael Wolff ©2019

Don’t forget to read today’s companion piece: 90-Day A Better Me Letters Series: Day 76

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90-Day A Better Me Series: Day 71 – Living Gratitude

90-Day A Better Me Series

Part III: Living the Journey

Making the Now Count: Rebuilding our Lives

Day 71: Living Gratitude

“Happiness cannot be traveled to, owned, earned, worn, or consumed. Happiness is the spiritual experience of living EVERY minute with love, grace, and gratitude.”

-Denis Waitley

Living gratitude is it! It is the way we’ve dreamed of living without ever knowing it. Living gratitude is about taking anything we are given, any challenge, any illness, any trauma, any joy, and any relationship, and any material item and finding the blessings and appreciation for the experience, person and/or thing. When we live gratitude our energy shifts and creates more room for receiving and giving. The blessings are countless when we live gratitude on a daily basis.

I’ve spoken a lot about gratitude throughout this 90-Day A Better Me Series. If you’ve been keeping up with the series and started the gratitude journal that was brought up in Part II, you are already seeing shifts in your life. If you have started being grateful for your body like was mentioned on Day 69, just connecting to the material is you planting the seed, however much you nurture that seed is an indicator of how it will grow. I see gratitude like the sprawling banyan tree. If you want the tree to drop roots and spread, you make sure the energy isn’t getting going to areas that will make the treetop heavy and not sprawl. You clean up some of the heavy weight up top so the tree will drop down roots and spread.  Soon the tree will be so big that is will take over. You have to MAKE space!

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Each day since writing the gratitude section in Part II, I’ve been adding 5 things to be grateful for in the 90-Day A Better Letters Series. I know the power of gratitude! Once we learn to start focusing on gratitude on a regular basis it becomes easier and easier. I can sometimes write pages of gratitude in just one day. The more I live gratitude, the happier I AM. Writing it down helps us to keep our minds focusing on putting our energy into the right place, but living gratitude is what happens after we can write pages of things to be grateful for daily.

Living gratitude is making the choice in each moment to see gratitude. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve gotten angry about something, then I thank God for showing me the areas of myself that I need to give attention to. I’m grateful for my mistakes. I’m grateful for others who show me their dark side, because it shows me where mine is. I’m grateful for the person who cut me off, because not hitting him meant that I was paying attention. I’m grateful for the person going slow in front of me, because it shows me where my head is. This doesn’t mean I 100% of the time react perfectly, it means I learn from my reactions and I’m grateful for the learning experience.

The beauty of living gratitude is what happens to those things in our lives that bring us joy—They EXPAND! The joy in our hearts fills us to the brim with AWE! Tears pour out of our eyes we are so full. We’ve made space for magic, abundance, blessings, learning, and Divine Energy to work in our lives.

It is not my business how anyone practices their spirituality as I’ve said before, but nothing makes me feel more connected to the Divine as living gratitude does. I feel like I’m connecting on a level of energy that is extremely pure and authentic. I feel God’s love running through me and I can feel my light shining out into the world.

Living gratitude lights our paths for us. We can see clearly when our energy is functioning on a higher level. We aren’t blinded by our own darkness. We are grateful for our dark and our ability to shine light in any dark corner we still have.

How Start Living Gratitude

  1. Start by writing in a gratitude journal daily. No, it’s not enough to just think it. Write as much as you can think of each day. Some days may have five things and other days you may find a hundred things, just take the time and really put your energy behind what you are writing.
  2. Practice living gratitude with whatever is challenging you. This is fun. It can be in traffic, in your relationships, in your job, etc. Just practice gratitude until you are literally laughing out loud at what you are coming up with.
  3. Share your gratitude with others. Make sure you are letting anyone who touches your life know how grateful you are. This can be fun to do with wait staff, cashiers, customer service reps, family, friends, and romantic partners. Just watching how your gratitude affects others is a truly amazing thing. Remember some people who work at toll booths, subways, trains, airlines, customer service, etc., may not hear that people are grateful for their service all-day long. Your gratitude can make a huge difference.
  4. Write down your experiences of showing gratitude. How did showing gratitude affect you and the people you showed it to? Did you notice if that person’s attitude shifted and affected the next person they dealt with? The more details, feelings, and passion you can add, the better! Connecting to the experience helps our brains to put more focus on that area.

Following these steps will help you start living gratitude, but if you don’t do the work, don’t expect the results. I hear people tell me time and time again that they want their lives to be different, but then they don’t do the work so they end up falling into the same unhealthy patterns. The only way to break the old unhealthy patterns is to create new ones to fill the space. That means we have to decide where we want to put our energy and commit to the life we want. Gratitude is the path to a life filled with abundance. There is no lack in gratitude. We always have everything we need right in this moment. Living gratitude is about embracing that.

Challenges are still going to happen and often it’s what knocks people off of the gratitude path. We get a taste of how good it gets, then a challenge comes up and we say, living gratitude obviously doesn’t work for me. The good stuff is practice for the challenges. If we stay the course, and stay open to learning from our challenges, we find the blessings. The chaos and drama periods of our lives become shorter and shorter, not always because the circumstances change— We change!

 

With Love and Gratitude,

 

Rachael Wolff ©2019

Don’t forget to read today’s companion piece: 90-Day A Better Me Letters Series: Day 71 -Living Gratitude In My Daily Life

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90-Day A Better Me Series: Day 68 – Building Our Home On A Foundation of Love

90-Day A Better Me Series

Part III: Living the Journey

Making the Now Count: Rebuilding our Lives

Day 68: Building Our Home On A Foundation of Love

“Every happy home has a foundation of love and a framework of support.”

-Wes Fesler

I think most of us have heard the saying, “Home is where the heart is.” Well our hearts are in our chests. We build our internal houses on a foundation of love or fear. If our foundation is based on loving perspectives of truth, positive self-worth, and a strong definition of love, we can build a home within us. If our foundation is based on fear-based perspectives of truth, poor self-worth, and a definition of love that confuses love with fear, we build shacks that become dilapidated and wonder why they aren’t stable. We covered all that in Part I & II. If you missed it, please feel free to go back and explore the topic further.

How we choose to build our homes will dictate the choices we make and who we allow to come in them. Think of the three little pigs from the fairytale. The three pigs were tortured by the big bad wolf (fear) who threatened to destroy their houses and eat them. How they built their homes were based on their thoughts and perspectives of truth. We want to make sure the perspectives of truth we are choosing to believe will help us to build homes that won’t be destroyed by fearful actions of others or fear itself.

When we build our homes on a foundation of love, we have so much to offer the world. Our gardens are ones that inspire others and our homes are inviting so others don’t feel threatened by all the dark hallways and cobwebs. When we give seeds from the beautiful gardens we’ve grown, people want to plant them in their own. Life becomes this amazing journey of discovery. We can learn new techniques, gather new tools, plant more flowers, change things to make improvements, and enjoy the learning process from interacting with others on their journeys. Some may offer a beautiful new painting or help us to see that our windows were dirty.

When our homes are built on a foundation of love, our minds are open. We are open to receive more, and we have so much more to give without ever feeling depleted. Life becomes the magical adventure it is meant to be. The more we learn from life, the more we will be able to enjoy it.

The next few days, I will be covering what it means to build our homes on a foundation of love. We will cover the structure (our bodies), choosing what we put in our homes (What we love to do), maintenance (Self-care), and creating a beautiful landscape (Gratitude-centered thinking). Then a little later we will cover visitors, protecting our homes from vandals, and helping others to build theirs. We only have 22 more days to go. We better get building!

 

With Love and Gratitude,

 

Rachael Wolff ©2019

Don’t forget to read today’s companion piece: 90-Day A Better Me Letters Series: Day 68 -Building My Home on a Foundation of Love

 

 

 

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90-Day A Better Me Letters Series: Day 61 – I’m Ready to Rebuild My Life

Letters from A Better Me

90-Day A Better Me Letters Series

Part III: Living the Journey

Making the Now Count: Rebuilding our Lives

Day 61: I’m Ready to Rebuild My Life

Dear Self,

The time is now and I’m ready to take my journey a step further and start living it. I’m committing to do the work that it will take to rebuild my life from the place I am now. I’m ready to commit to the work it will take to get me live this journey with love, gratitude, hope and faith. I know that every step I take is an important step on this journey and I don’t want to miss it.

I’m choosing to work smart. I need to be conscious of my priorities so that I may honor them and shift them as necessary to live the life of my choosing. I’M CHOOSING! I’m responsible for the energy I put into my journey. I’m not going to blame anybody else for the energy I’m putting into it. I can choose to let fear-based energy grow and fester, or I can choose to release it and replace it with the energy I want to be going into this day, this moment. I know the energy I choose right now will affect how the lessons on my journey play out. I’m committed to choosing wisely.

I know in order to choose wisely, I have to do the work to maintain this new way of looking at life. I have to make I engage in regular practices using the new thought processes. Otherwise those fear-based ones will creep back in. I’m ready!

I’m committing to be more loving, compassionate and empathetic to myself as I transition out of fear-based actions. I will simply do the best I can and learn from the times that I choose fear over love. There will be no more creating of toxic muck by contributing to self-abuse. I’m ready to transform my life by making the choice to live it!

Let the work begin!

Today I’m Grateful

  1. I’m grateful for my right to choose my energy that I’m letting lead me
  2. I’m grateful for the ability shift from moment to moment .
  3. I’m grateful for making the choice to invest time into the work I need to do in order for my life to be better.
  4. I’m grateful for this journey with all it’s growing and learning.
  5. I’m grateful to feel ready to live my life from a loving place.

With Love and Gratitude,

 

A Better Me

 

Rachael Wolff ©2019

Don’t forget to read today’s companion piece: 90-Day A Better Me Series: Day 61 – Rebuilding Our Lives on a Stable Foundation

 

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