Themes from Thought Leaders
The wonderful filmmaker, Louie Schwartzberg teamed up with 21 different thought leaders and presented a theme each day combined with beautiful pictures from nature and ending each day with a quick meditation. I wanted to share some lessons that really stood out for me from participating in this very valuable exercise. https://movingart.com/gratitude-revealed/
On Day 6, Dr. Pamela Peeke spoke about epigenetics and stated that gratitude actually effects and alters the way your genes talk to your body!
Lesson 1: Gratitude can actually alter your destiny. I find this totally fascinating.
On Day 8, the focus was, “Can I be grateful even in intense situations in my life?” Miten from Deva Premal stated, “Every situation has the potential to take me into a deeper understanding and knowledge of my own being. Every lesson is a gift.”
Lesson 2: Little did I know how much I would be tested with a intense situation that very day. I had my hard drive crash in my computer and was 4 days away from going away to a conference in which I needed a lot of data from my computer for! It is definitely a lot easier to be grateful when everything is going well, because intense situations do definitely put us to the test! I actually did go through the full on grieving process with shock/disbelief, then anger, then sadness and then acceptance. I will be the first to admit that it was a very difficult task, but having heard this valuable advice helped me to focus more on what was going right in my world.
Day 9 – 13 Due to my computer crash and conference, I waited to listen to the gratitude posts from Day 9-13. Unbeknownced to me, the gratitude posts expired after a set amount of time, so I did not get to watch any of those posts.
Lesson 3: Gratitude is something that must be done daily and not just saved for when you think you have time to do it!
Day 18, Dr. Baskaran Pillai stated, “Once upon a time religion was nature. It was considered normal to talk to the trees and rivers and plants.” He stated that by losing touch with nature, we are losing touch with God.
Lesson 4: By thinking of ourselves as separate from nature, we are actually seeing ourselves as not connected to the universal force.
A bonus day was given on Day 22 with Doron Libshtein. He stated that we need to stop looking at things as happening “to” us and instead change our thought process to everything is happening “for” me.
Lesson 5: Everything happens “for” me, not “to” me. I really needed to hear this to have a shift in my thinking. When I returned from my conference, I received the news that the external hard drive that I had had as back up for my computer had failed as well. The hard drive is currently at a data recovery centre to see whether they can extract any info at all. If they can, it will be a $1,500 fix. If they can’t, I will have lost 5 years of business and personal data, contacts and pictures as well as the new book that I was working on. (As a side note, I asked and apparently 18% of hard drives crash, and external hard drives can be unreliable as well. I was told, that people need to have two backups of their hard drive info. I am telling you this to hopefully save you from going through what I have just experienced.)
In closing, since my computer was in the shop, I gifted myself some time to visit with a friend. Two nights before I had seen a coyote and knew deep in my soul that there was a message for me. When I met with my friend who is incredibly connected to nature, she gave me a book called “Coyote’s Guide to Connecting with Nature.” When I started reading it, I had absolute angel bumps as it had used the same statement that I had used in my newsletter in November and that was, “We all need to Stop, Look and Listen to all the wonderful lessons that nature teaches us with such ease and grace.” I realize that I am meant to do more research and connect and collaborate more with others for my book. I also need to be expressing more gratitude for all that I have in my life and take a few gratitude lessons from nature. Birds sing before the dawn because they know the sun will rise. I have to have that same faith and inner knowing. I am deeply grateful. How about you?
Sending loads of sunshine your way,
Susanne