Sunday, January 25

Gratitude

This morning I started off my day in a beautiful way, with a two hour yoga and meditation session with beautiful people in the beautiful Adelaide Botanic Park. Thanks to the Adelaide Yoga Community and Breathe In Peace initiatives, these free sessions are run on the last Sunday of the month (for more details see the Adelaide Yoga Community Facebook page). Basically the aim is to create a collective consciousness and spreading of kindness, gratitude, and peace throughout the community and the world. It is also about nurturing kindness and gratitude within ourselves, towards our bodies, our rhythms, our lives, and creating inner peace.



Filled with this positive energy I came home feeling very calm and relaxed. I feel that an important part of establishing inner peace is surround ourselves with environments that create peace within us. For me, this means a clean and tidy environment, so I burnt some incense and straightened my house. I stripped the bed and put on my yellow quilt cover, because it makes me feel happy. Then I put on some classical music and baked some biscuits for an afternoon tea I was having with a friend (you can find the recipe here). Ahh the peace!






However, we are all different, I know that for a lot of people clean and tidy spaces make them feel anxious. This is ok, we are all unique and we all require unique energies. Something that we all have in common though, I think, is that all too often we find ourselves drawn to thinking about what isn't, instead of what is. I really enjoyed talking with my friend over afternoon tea, and something that was talked of a lot (and even visited) was the house she is building. It would be easy to fall victim to feelings of envy and self pity, but instead I only felt excitement and gratitude that this wonderful thing was happening to a most deserving friend. It is so liberating to experience positive vibes over negative ones, if only we all lived with more gratitude, respect, and love in our hearts.

It was at this point in my day that I was truly overwhelmed with gratitude. Things have been tough for a long time, but I recently confided in my mum that I have been skipping meals because I can't afford to buy enough food for a whole week. This afternoon, she showed up at my door with boxes of food that she had bought for me, as well as a posy of herbs and flowers to brighten my day.



Tears were shed. There are just no words to describe how thankful I am for the kindness and generosity of this woman and how much she has helped me over the years, but particularly over this past year.

Having so many options for dinner was slightly overwhelming, but I eventually decided to make a curry filled with HEAPS of vegetables, because vegetables have been scarily lacking in my diet of late, what with my diet mostly consisting of rice, toast, and breakfast cereal. Instead of eating in front of the computer like I usually do, I made dinner a special event, a special time for me to just spend time on me.



The curry was amazing, so delicious, colourful, and nourishing, and you can find the recipe hereUnfortunately I began to feel a bit ill while eating dinner, I'm not used to eating a normal amount of food or eating food of actual substance. But still, I was thankful that my body was finally receiving the nutrition it needed.

Part of embracing gratitude, love, and peace, is being kind to ourselves, and taking the time to nurture ourselves. So often we are caught up in the business of life that we overlook this. Stop and take a moment to truly love yourself. To acknowledge your amazing body and the way it keeps you alive and makes you who you are. Take that moment to respect yourself and thank yourself for being awesome. Then give yourself an internal self-hug (or, hell, an actual self-hug). You could even nurture your body and soul with a warm candle-lit bath and the best of Tchaikovsky, as I did.



'I just love this day I just feel that we're blessed' - DNA (from the song Life As It Is)

Happy living! :)

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