Thank Your Dog

Gratitude is an extremely valuable tool for positive thinking. If you wake up each morning and think of at least one thing that you are happy to have in your life, you are starting your day on the right foot. Instantly you are in a great mood because you are reflection on a piece of your life that you cherish.

There was a time when I would do this every morning before I even opened my eyes. Every single day I had a smile on my face before I lifted my head off of my pillow. Those were some great days.

I'm making a new effort to continue this practice. Some one once told me that when I wake up in the morning, I have a choice to make. Will I have a good day, or will I have a bad day? Well, practicing this exercise of thanks is a sure-fire way to decide on having a good day.

How can I even feel right about wanting to bring more into my life if I can't be grateful for what I have?

I strongly suggest trying this. It will do wonders for you. It doesn't matter who you're thanking, either. It can be God, it can be the universe, your lucky pillow, your dog, or you can even thank yourself. It doesn't matter. As long as you are feeling genuine gratitude, I promise, it will lift your spirits before anything else has the chance to bring them down.

"Look for something to be thankful and glad over each day, and you will find it."
-Ella Wheeler Wilcox

Happy to See My Family Happy

It's a really great thing that I have walking (or should I say crawling?) motivation with me everyday. All I have to do is look at my son. It doesn't matter how bent I am on being in a bad mood, and believe me, I can be that stubborn. Jacob never fails to make me smile.


As of yesterday, my baby boy is a big eight month old! It's crazy how the time flies. He's crawling, walking along furniture, laughing, and doing some of the silliest things I've ever seen. He's the sweetest baby I've ever seen in my life. Am I biased? Of course, but so is every other mom on the planet!


For the past day and a half I've been stuck in a bit of a rut. I've been moody, I've been picking fights, and I generally had a hard time reminding myself to simply be happy. Now, I don't want to dwell on any of this, because it would be the antithesis of what I'm trying to accomplish. Instead, I want to write about what pulled me out of that phase.


I was still in a pretty bad mood when I crawled into bed last night. Everyone knows that it's no good to go to sleep angry or sad, but some people think there is no other option. What they don't realize is that by telling themselves that, they are only making it true. If you believe that you HAVE to go to bed upset and there's no way out of it, then you are only programming your brain to not only believe that, but to accept it as the only plausible outcome.


It is absolutely not true. Yes, I was in a bad mood when I crawled into bed, but I was perfectly happy when I fell asleep. The first thing I did to lift my spirits was kiss Austin goodnight. Even though we were arguing over petty things for a good part of the evening, I made sure to remind myself why I love him. When I did that, those things we were arguing about didn't seem to matter at all. Then, I got up and went into Jacob's room to kiss him on the forehead. I don't know if it's just me or if it is a mom thing, but seeing my baby sleep just melts my heart. It's almost as if it leaves no room for thoughts of anything but the love I have for my family.


That, my friends, was all it took. I had to clear my head long enough to see what mattered most to me, and why it matters, and then everything else just slipped away until I couldn't even remember why it was there in the first place. The people we love do way more for us that they ever realize.


This morning had a completely different atmosphere, and it was wonderful. I got up when I heard the baby and plopped him in his highchair with his cheerios. On a whim, I decided to make pancakes. Normally, I don't even bother eating breakfast, and Austin has a poptart on his way out the door. Needless to say, he was ecstatic when he saw a plate of pancakes replacing his poptart's usual spot on the table. As for me? I was happy to see my family happy.

The Power of the Mind

A couple of summers ago, I had a coworker who had recently been doing a lot of research on the power of the mind. He and I discussed this topic quite frequently while we worked together, and I became interested in it as well. However, he believed that there was some supernatural force in the universe that was manifesting his thoughts into what he wanted to see. I wasn’t quite that extreme, but I did take some very valuable ideas and concepts from our conversations that I believed could really make a difference in my life.

After I’d done a little research myself, I decided to give it a try. Why not? Even if I didn’t believe that the universe was my own personal genie, there was certainly no harm in doing my best to fill my mind with positive thoughts. So, I began to reflect on everything I was grateful for before bed each night. In the morning, before I even got out of bed, I would imagine my day going exactly as I wanted it to. Anytime throughout the day I would catch myself being negative about anything at all, I would make a conscious effort to turn my thoughts around.

Let me tell you, consciously changing your own thoughts is not as easy as it may seem. It takes a lot of work to monitor every thought that goes through your head. I realized that it would be much easier to focus on staying in a positive overall mood. It worked just as well, and was far less exhausting.

I soon began to find that I was having better days and I was much more confident. Allowing myself to truly believe I could accomplish my goals made me feel more empowered. I don’t think that my mind has some sort of magic power that bends time and space to cater to me, but I absolutely believe that because I was staying positive, I was achieving more for myself, and I felt better about helping others achieve their ambitions.

By the end of that year, I was accomplishing things I never knew I was capable of and I was truly happy for the first time in a very long time.

Recently, I let myself fall back into a rut of negativity. While I have many wonderful people and things in my life that I am extremely grateful for, I have found myself focusing on the negative again. This blog is a part of my plan to get back on track and live life as it was meant to be lived.