Serious Gratitude, and a New Life Now

First of all, thank you all for your thoughts, prayers, comments, emails, etc., surrounding our recent car accident and Tracy’s hospitalization. She is home now, resting in bed and talking to her parents on the phone. I can hear her in the next room… and it’s making me grateful.

Not just grateful that she’s home and feeling better.

Grateful for the whole experience.

If you think about it, it may be a little cold to say that I’m grateful I was rear ended and that my wife spent 4 days in the hospital with chest pains, and that one car was our only one since her vehicle is currently in limbo (we’ll be blogging about that one soon as well). And that I ended up using four days of my vacation at work for this so I now can’t visit my family in CT as I’d planned on.

Yup… there’s a bunch I could complain about.

But man, I’ve got it sweet.

The woman that I love is alive and well and home. The accident is being paid in full by my insurance company, with no increase in rates or deductible responsibility. I have a job that offers vacation time, so I will be paid for the time I spent with Tracy in the hospital. I have health insurance, so the hospital bills are as good as paid as well.

Things are a bit different than they were just a few years ago. Back then, I couldn’t hold a job for more than a few weeks, due to the depression and drinking. If Tracy went into the hospital, if I saw her at all, I was hung over and desperately trying to figure out how I was going to explain to her where I’d been and what I’d done the day and night before. Things were just a wreck… because I made them that way.

I’m also grateful because I feel like these events have moved my mind to a new level. Sometimes it takes a shock like this to make one realize that he’s been sitting on his butt, spinning his wheels and not taking enough action toward creating his life the way he wants it.

No, I’m not joining another program. I’m not trying a new technique. I’m not buying another self-help book, tape, ebook, DVD, or seminar.

I’m focusing on what needs improvement, and working on what is in front of me.

I’ve been thinking a lot about a lesson that was given by Dr. Don Burt at the DuPage Church of Religious Science, the last church I was a member of. The lesson is The Spirituality of Subtraction. The gist of it is that we already have all that we need, and that all we need to do is remove the “stuff” that we are attached to - and find the perfection that is already inside of us.

One of the main things that is mentioned in the lesson is removing our need to control things. I think many of us (myself included) come into the teachings on the Law of Attraction and start trying to control external events by thinking happy thoughts. While happy thoughts do help, since the external events are simply reflections of thinking that has already occurred, it’s like trying to close the barn door after the horses have already left; it’s futile.

The only place that control needs to be exercised is in the thoughts we are having RIGHT NOW. Not a minute ago, an hour ago, or a day ago. So stop beating yourself up about not getting your thoughts perfect… just make them perfect now.

And don’t, as I used to do, say to yourself “OK, I’ll control them now, but just wait an hour… then I’ll be depressed again.”

Why not wait for the hour to get here. Then you can control or guide (I actually prefer guide, a la Esther Hicks) your thoughts then (or not… it’s up to you).

So, back to what I’m going to start working on…

This moment.

I started this awhile back… as a matter of fact, one of my first blogs was called “One Moment at a Time.” And it’s entire focus was on just how I could live each moment to the fullest.

It’s simple, but not easy. And there are ton of questions that can come up with it, like “What about goals?” and “If you are just living in the moment, why bother doing things like go to work, pay the bills, eat healthy, stay sober, and so forth?”

I’ve been wondering what I could really write about and contribute… maybe I’ve found it?

And it’s good that I’ve got an eternity of moments to get it right.

Similar Posts:

• Gratitude Lists
• Dealing with the Unexpected
• Choice and Blame (or Who Decides When I Get Off Of The Bus?)
• Things are going to be ok…
• Gratitude for Interconnectedness