'Tis the season to feel gratitude...

When I wrote those words, I was thinking about Thanksgiving. As I considered the image painted by the words, however, I realized that for those of us on eons.com, the season to be grateful extends beyond the mere season of the holidays.

The season to be grateful is the season of our lives in which we graciously find ourselves.

And while so many of us are energized to look forward to the adventures that we will create in the years still to come, perhaps this season is a good time to look back and to enjoy this day and this week and this holiday season, to relish all the experiences and the life that we have – and that we have had – and that is still ours for the making.

Perhaps it is time to simply feel the gratitude of making it this far in the journey.

And this thought, in and of itself, was enough to get me breathing in a new way, to lower my shoulders to that relaxed state that enables some good reflection- the looking back – and some solid looking forward in daydreaming and visioning, the very stuff that got us this far on the journey.

My own reflections reminded me of how easy it is to look at the half empty – and how important it is to look for – and to create - the half full.

I recalled the joyful experiences of spending time with those people who had entered my life and had made a departure that had seemed far too early when they moved on to the next chapter of their lives whether it was on earth or not.

In this relaxed state, I relished the gift of each person’s company, of the wisdom each had given me even if it did not dawn on me until far after our connection. And I remembered and relished the feelings of being with each of the significant individuals who had impacted me far beyond our time together.

The researcher in me sneaked a comment in – about how visualization can create some of the same brain connections and mind-body chemistry as the real experience.

So I put on my favorite relaxation music and purposefully dove in for some more treks down memory lane. Breathing deeply, relaxed, listening to new-ish age piano music, I allowed myself the gift of reviewing the people I had loved and who had loved me, the people I had mentored and cajoled to push themselves to be all that they could be, and the people by whom I had been mentored and taught and coached to be all that I could be – even when I didn’t believe their visions for me. And I felt sheer gratitude looking at my journey, thus far, from this lens of gratitude, from this lens of half-full and even more.

Just like you, I have those other half-empty experiences and faces associated with them – but this time I chose to focus only on the half-full. And my heart felt more than half-full. It soared with the knowledge that each one of us can choose the things – including the memories - that we let into our consciousness, that we focus on – and we have the power to screen out everything else.

And that ability – to choose our lenses, to tune in and to tune out – is the ultimate freedom that allows us to create the reality that we live, to create the lives that we can love and to live those lives. And for this, I am so very grateful.

What about you?

For what are you grateful?

To whom do you feel gratitude?

Who are the people you want to remember this season – and to send thanks to through your thoughts and brainwaves, through your beating heart, through your fond recollection, through your carrying on even when fatigue may get you down?

Turn on your own relaxing music –or pump it up with your favorite rock and roll – stretch out in your favorite chair. And let the images flow – you choose the images, the experiences to recall, to relish – and those that you will screen out. Relish and savor your recollections.

Use your wonderful mind and heart- with its power to reflect and visualize and dream – to relish each and every positive memory of those people and experiences for which you hold gratitude in your heart. Feel that gratitude. Realize that others may be picturing you in their own recollections.

Remember, too, that these very recollections were, perhaps, mere dreams in the earlier steps of your journey.

Consider what recollections you want to add to your personal arsenal – the things on which you can reflect next year at this time – the things for which you want to feel pride and the gift of gratitude. Let these become the dreams, visions and goals to which you aspire on this next leg of the journey.

Relish all that you have created on this journey.

And still, of course, look forward to, hold tight to, reach out for and step in to your dreams.

Looking forward and moving ahead,
Pam Brill