In my past, I have done many things, including publishing an ezine called Upsy Daisy Daily. A decade ago, I declared June 8 Upsy Daisy Day and registered it with Chase's Calendar of Events; the holiday has been official for 10 years. The tag line? "A day to remind people to get up gloriously, gratefully, and gleefully."
Okay, so I was in my greeting card phase. I did have fun, and met many very nice people who subscribed to the ezine and then contacted me. In honor of tomorrow, I will today post one of the ezine's editions. I find it curious that I wrote it a few years before I learned about brain science and neuroplasticity (or the benefits of gratitude), yet it foreshadows what I have since learned. It's brain science in bovine terms.
Loosen Up Your Mind With Gratitude
Boston Bovines Hold The Answer For You
Did you know that our brains are full of cow paths? Robert Fritz begins his book The Path of Least Resistance by explaining how the streets of Boston were laid out; they do not seem to be the result of any planning.
Long, long ago in Boston, grazing and wandering cows walked the easiest paths they could find and, with each passing cow, these paths became more clearly defined and easier to follow. These cow paths became the plan for Boston's streets.
Fritz says, "As a result, city planning in Boston gravitates around the mentality of the seventeenth century cow."
The thoughts that we have over and over form cow paths in our brains. Each repeated thought makes the path more defined and easier. We think about not enough money frequently and the not enough-money path becomes the easiest one to follow -- our thoughts just follow the same old cow path. Same with thoughts of sickness and irritability and judgment and all breeds and brands of scarcity.
Perhaps your thought planning gravitates around the mentality of the old twentieth century you.
Once those cow paths get formed, they call to our thoughts, and lead them to places where our dreams canÌt be seen. Our brains are riddled with deep furrows meandering through hard, caked, crusted dirt. How do we loosen up the dirt into pliable, rich, fertile mud? We need to rain on our brain.
Mud, Marvelous Mud
Gratitude is the rain that smooths the way for new paths. When the storms of gratitude fall upon our brains, the dry, stuck paths dissolve leaving the mighty, moldable mud of potential. We can form new paths where our thoughts can dance on down the new grooves of health, wealth, love, and creativity.
Gratitude and rigidity cannot coexist. Gratitude makes new freeways of thinking gently possible. Have you ever found yourself thinking over and over about something you do not want in your life? That's a sure way to get more and more of that something. You probably know that, but all of a sudden you catch yourself having those thoughts—again—of what you most definitely do not want.
Why? Your thoughts are following those old, well-worn, rigid cow paths in your brain. They follow those cow trails while you are not looking. And it does not work to put roadblocks in the paths, to resist those thoughts. You have to build new roads, create new paths.
Feeling gratitude will smooth out the landscape so you can create the new paths. Replace the thoughts of sickness with thoughts of health, poverty thoughts with wealth thoughts, dread thoughts with dream thoughts. You can then build with your thoughts the health highways and wealth byways and love lanes and self-express-ways.
Singing In The Rain
And we know that once your thoughts are following the new paths, the health and wealth and love and self-expression will manifest openly and freely in your life.
Let the feeling of gratitude rain and reign in your life. It will shower you with pleasures and treasures. It will let you see how you are a mighty, shining raindrop in the great rainfall of the good universe. Let "thank you" be your prayer that you sing in the rain.
Gratitude Push-up
Before you go to bed, think of an incident that happened to you during the day. Any incident. It can be as simple as eating breakfast or walking the dog or talking to a coworker. Write the incident as if you were putting it in your memoirs or journal or autobiography. And do it this way . . .
When you write about the incident, revise it so it includes your having a LARGE amount of gratitude during the incident. How? As you think about the incident before you write, feel the gratitude flowing into the memory. Feel yourself full of thanks. See a smile. Maybe feel a bounce in your step, peace in your shoulders, joy in your posture. Then write the incident in this revised version. Don't worry about good style or grammar or punctuation. Simply write it.
Do this exercise for a week with a new incident from each day. I think you will be surprised at what happens to your level of gratitude during those seven days.
Did you know that our brains are full of cow paths? Robert Fritz begins his book The Path of Least Resistance by explaining how the streets of Boston were laid out; they do not seem to be the result of any planning.
Long, long ago in Boston, grazing and wandering cows walked the easiest paths they could find and, with each passing cow, these paths became more clearly defined and easier to follow. These cow paths became the plan for Boston's streets.
Fritz says, "As a result, city planning in Boston gravitates around the mentality of the seventeenth century cow."
The thoughts that we have over and over form cow paths in our brains. Each repeated thought makes the path more defined and easier. We think about not enough money frequently and the not enough-money path becomes the easiest one to follow -- our thoughts just follow the same old cow path. Same with thoughts of sickness and irritability and judgment and all breeds and brands of scarcity.
Perhaps your thought planning gravitates around the mentality of the old twentieth century you.
Once those cow paths get formed, they call to our thoughts, and lead them to places where our dreams canÌt be seen. Our brains are riddled with deep furrows meandering through hard, caked, crusted dirt. How do we loosen up the dirt into pliable, rich, fertile mud? We need to rain on our brain.
Mud, Marvelous Mud
Gratitude is the rain that smooths the way for new paths. When the storms of gratitude fall upon our brains, the dry, stuck paths dissolve leaving the mighty, moldable mud of potential. We can form new paths where our thoughts can dance on down the new grooves of health, wealth, love, and creativity.
Gratitude and rigidity cannot coexist. Gratitude makes new freeways of thinking gently possible. Have you ever found yourself thinking over and over about something you do not want in your life? That's a sure way to get more and more of that something. You probably know that, but all of a sudden you catch yourself having those thoughts—again—of what you most definitely do not want.
Why? Your thoughts are following those old, well-worn, rigid cow paths in your brain. They follow those cow trails while you are not looking. And it does not work to put roadblocks in the paths, to resist those thoughts. You have to build new roads, create new paths.
Feeling gratitude will smooth out the landscape so you can create the new paths. Replace the thoughts of sickness with thoughts of health, poverty thoughts with wealth thoughts, dread thoughts with dream thoughts. You can then build with your thoughts the health highways and wealth byways and love lanes and self-express-ways.
Singing In The Rain
And we know that once your thoughts are following the new paths, the health and wealth and love and self-expression will manifest openly and freely in your life.
Let the feeling of gratitude rain and reign in your life. It will shower you with pleasures and treasures. It will let you see how you are a mighty, shining raindrop in the great rainfall of the good universe. Let "thank you" be your prayer that you sing in the rain.
Gratitude Push-up
Before you go to bed, think of an incident that happened to you during the day. Any incident. It can be as simple as eating breakfast or walking the dog or talking to a coworker. Write the incident as if you were putting it in your memoirs or journal or autobiography. And do it this way . . .
When you write about the incident, revise it so it includes your having a LARGE amount of gratitude during the incident. How? As you think about the incident before you write, feel the gratitude flowing into the memory. Feel yourself full of thanks. See a smile. Maybe feel a bounce in your step, peace in your shoulders, joy in your posture. Then write the incident in this revised version. Don't worry about good style or grammar or punctuation. Simply write it.
Do this exercise for a week with a new incident from each day. I think you will be surprised at what happens to your level of gratitude during those seven days.
Comments