I’ve blogged on and off for a couple of years now about Gratitude and love everything about it.  This year’s Grateful in April campaign was fabulous and from feedback I received, many of you following me and/or the campaign equally enjoyed my posts.

This simple facebook post prodded my thinking:

So, here’s what I’m going to do: I am making a public commitment to blog for 30 days in June and make at least 150 public pledges for what I’m grateful for. That’s an average of 5 things a day and I reckon it’s pretty manageable don’t you?

I know that to allow new habits to become a norm, we have to repeat them, and that my 30 blogs in June won’t even go close to hitting the 10,000 repetitions to make me an expert on gratitude. HOWEVER it’s a damn fine start right? Feel free to join me and hold me accountable!

ps these butterfly pics are breathtaking aren’t they? One on it’s own was stunning, but then when there were two I was deeply grateful for

1. the presence of these butterflies
2. our stunning rope hoya (the plant the butterflies are feasting on)
3. my trusty iPhone4
4. amazing camera apps like camera+
5. the gift of life

My mum sowed the seeds on the importance of having an attitude of gratitude when I was very young. I realise now, that her daily rations of

• “be thankful for what you have”
• “think of all those poor little kids in Africa starving”
• “there’s always someone worse off than you”
• “thank your lucky stars you’ve got a roof over your head and food in your belly”

were peppered with love and rock solid values that set me up front the beginning of life to think beyond myself. And while my mum’s life has by no means been easy, she generally has a happy knack of being able to look for the good and leave the rest to god!

Little did I know in my early years, how my mum’s wisdom would become fodder that I would heavily rely on throughout my life.

The river of reciprocity is endless. To fully appreciate this endless river, we need to cultivate an attitude of gratitude. Because it’s from this perspective that we begin to fully appreciate and understand, that the more we give, the more we receive.

So here are my top tips for you to pay it forward, based on my mum’s teachings:

1. Develop an attitude of gratitude. Express gratitude for at least 5 things every day – this can be for the simple things in life like breathing, or for anything else you choose to acknowledge.
2. Give away at least 5 smiles a day – they are free and supply is endless. Have you ever stopped to think how your smile might be the only one to brighten someone else’s day?
3. Give without thinking about “what’s in it for me”.
4. Give because you know it’s the right thing to do – not what someone told you to do.
5. Give because you can.
6. Give more than you could ever expect to receive.
7. Give from the heart and give the head a break.
8. Give what you know you can give and then give some more.

Giving of your time, talent or money makes you feel good, and feeling good increases your serotonin levels, otherwise known as the happiness hormones. What can you do today, even if it’s only one thing different, that will pay it forward and get you swimming in the river of reciprocity?

  7 simple steps

How to break the rules and myth bust beliefs

These 7 simple steps are not rocket science, yet when carried out daily have the power to support you to be the change you want to see in the world. Try them out and let me know what you think ok?

Step 1: Think about something unkind you say to yourself and pay attention to whether or not you say it in first person or third person: For example “I’m so stupid” or “You are so stupid”

Step 2: Next, imagine you are outside of yourself and are simply assessing this conversation.

Step 3: Can you hear another voice over your own?

Step 4: At what point did you give this voice permission to judge you, let alone measure your intelligence?

Step 5: Imagine having a conversation with this voice (whether it’s your own or someone else’s) where you gently explain that the voice got it wrong, and in fact there is not enough evidence to claim this statement as fact.  See yourself as bigger, bolder and braver than the voice, in fact shrink the voice right down to the smallest thing you can imagine.

Step 6: Take three long, slow deep breaths and give yourself permission to hold this more powerful sense of your strength and abilities.

Step 7: Continue to practice this active reflection daily until you are confident you have created new more positive beliefs about yourself.

Replacing old unhelpful thought patterns and self talk with new ones that affirm your ability and authenticity will certainly bring about change in your life. Can you give yourself permission to commit to creating new healthy habits? Watch this 1.11 min video and tell me what you will commit to changing today!

The land of the grateful living dead

My mum and I haven’t always been this close. I do remember adoring her when I was little, and wanting to be close to her as a teenager, but not knowing how to make it happen. I have vague memories of doing chores, running errands and wanting to help ease her load before I left home at 16.

Ultimately though I was a fiery messed up kid and an emotionally volatile young woman, with lots of good reasons to be so.

In my darkest hours of grief and loss I entered the land of the grateful living dead and discovered the most incredible sense of desolation and liberation. Weird huh?

Walking with the spirits of childhood memories that blood was thicker then water, and more recently living the reality of being formally excommunicated for speaking my truth was confronting beyond belief. The complex realisation of needing to reconcile myself with this was an unexpected nightmare.

Finding my way through these tumultuous years was no easy feat. Experiencing a serious health crisis in 2009, I realised that somewhere in the depths of my unconsciousness there must have been a belief wrapped in my final bubble of optimism toward mum and dad’s other children, that relationships would be mended. My darling mother attempted to reengage most of her children with me.  Informing them of my grave state of health, two of the seven made contact with one of them being my sister by chance and lifetime friend by choice. The pain and horror for my mother was almost more than I could bear.

In answer to her query of whether her other children had made contact with me while in hospital, her words of wisdom ring in my consciousness still: “Bron darling, I think it’s time we all came to terms with the fact that these people don’t love you, because if they did, now more than ever was the time for them to build a bridge. They haven’t, and for that I’m sad for you. But for you to get well, you need to let this all go now and move on!”

Initially I felt numb and like a very big part of me had died a painful death. Swinging between pain, shame and raging anger I knew I was more than a survivor, and now needed to resurrect myself from the living dead. Rising up from the ashes was painful, physically and emotionally. As a way of managing, I nicknamed myself Phoenix, and my husband bought me a beautiful orchid that we dubbed “Phoenix rising”.

Phoenix rising

As hard as it was for me to hear what my mum said to me that day, I knew she spoke the truth, and more so, what it cost her to do so. From there on in, mum taught me how to therapeutically express gratitude daily.

It’s been six years now since I spoke up about what happened to me. Coming through the tail end of grief and loss regarding mum and dad’s other 6 children has been painfully insightful. The best way I can describe it is feeling like I have buried six siblings, their partners and all of their children without coffins, ceremonies or significant dates.

Being excluded from family events and having notes and Christmas cards returned or ignored wasn’t the hardest part.

Receiving abusive and threatening phone calls, nasty emails and needing to arrange private phone numbers and still screen all calls was by no means pleasant.

And while the cyber stalking was distressing of itself, nor was it the hardest part.

No, the hardest part was actually having to explain to our three children why their aunties and uncles and cousins had ceased all contact with them too.

Prior to meeting and marrying my husband, I experienced sexual abuse and domestic violence, coupled with various levels of self harm. But nothing had prepared me for this.

My extended family connections no longer exist beyond a lifetime of unconditional love from my only sister, varying levels of support and love from my mother and father, my husband of 25 years and our amazing three adult children. I don’t know how I would have managed to survive this horrendous roller coaster ride so far without their love and support and having developed an attitude of gratitude.

I know I have so much to be grateful for. My dignity and self respect are intact. My loyalty cannot be bought. My soul is pure and my heart continues to expand daily. Gratitude is my cornerstone and an unstoppable faith is my foundation.

Walking in the land of the grateful living dead has liberated me in a way that I could never have imagined possible. And the cost has been worth it.

Every day I am grateful for living and breathing and knowing that my past is not my present and nor is my present life my future. Expressing gratitude is not an option for me, it’s my compulsory compass!

I have a very amazing friend and colleague Omanissa Ross whom I have known for over 10 years. This year we have taken to doing regular energy exchanges via skype. God I love technology!

We are having the loveliest time in these practitioner to practitioner exchanges and just the other day in our session I learned (in amongst other very mind blowing stuff) that Chamomile tea contains Vit B when it’s steeped and covered for at least 10 mins.

I am so very grateful for this beautiful connection with Om, and all that comes with it, as well as discovering an easy way to ingest Vit B! I quite like it hot or cold – the trick is to steep and cover for at least 10 minutes. Then all you have to do is sip, enjoy and relax!

Mung beans are stock food in my pantry. I love the boost they give me knowing that every fibre of those little beans is working its’ hardest to give my internal body a boost. This is a power packed meal in itself!

Ingredients

1. 2 tbsp dried mung beans
2. 1 dstp coconut milk powder or 2 tbsp fresh coconut milk
3. I frozen banana
4. 1 dstp hazlenut meal
5. cayenne pepper
6. 1/2 boiling water
7. 1 cup warm water

Method

I’m so grateful for my husband of almost 25 years!

A blokey bloke through and through,

he doesn’t buy me flowers,

he grows them instead.

He doesn’t use the dish washer,

the noise affects his head!

Happy to wash em, rinse em and stack em high,

He’s a man of very few words.

A heart of gold and solid as a rock,

It’s real love you just can’t buy!

I am really loving this Gratitude campaign, and thought I’d collate the last 24 hours of grateful tweets.

So here we are already in the eighteenth day of #GratefulinApril

This campaign continues to motivate me to remain grateful for everything in my life, be it good, great, ordinary or mundane! Refusing to give in to the emotionally muddy dark clouds that beg to engulf me, I am feeling more motivated and enthusiastic then I have in ages.

Ingredients

1 pink lady apple finely grated

1 tbsp shredded coconut

1dstp coconut cream

1 tbsp crushed peanuts

Method