Flipping my Attitude to Gratitude

While I'm just getting over the pain in my neck, I have something new to deal with - bald patches! I don't know how long I've had them, but when my son pointed them out to me I freaked out. I found two big ones - each the size of a quarter, and another small one just starting. I called my sister the earliest I could and she said it was most likely due to stress. I never would have guessed I would have to worry about stress, but now that I think about it, how do I get rid of stress!? Short of quitting my job and running away to a mountain top where all I do is read and write, I can't think of a holistic solution to relieve stress. But as I start thinking I realize I can't just wait to retire and address it then - I have to start addressing it now, or risk the chance of losing all my hair!

The first thing that comes to mind is meditation, but I've been trying this for a long time now, and I feel like I'm going backwards. Then I remember the poem Mangala had sent me - Beannacht - to find a flock of color to chase away the ghosts of greys. I remember my old gratitude journal I had started more than 10 years ago when I had read Sarah ban Breathnach's Simple Abundance. It had tremendously changed my outlook on life - from complaining to compassion, from thoughtlessness to thankfulness, from self-pity to savoring precious moments.

I had maintained that journal for a while, off and on, but I haven't been rigorous about it lately, because I figured as long as my perspective has changed I don't really have to record it. But now that I'm watching my thoughts, I realize how absorbed they are on all the wrong things I do. I have this dream of being a simple, innocent being, open, honest, truthful, strong, and kind. And it kills me that I'm not all those. I suffer in self-guilt, for not being the person I want to be. But I really have to start making an effort at flipping my outlook - from finding all the things that are wrong with my life, to listing all the things that are right. I just assumed that I was already doing this in my mind, but when I actually sit and read my own mind, I seem to be spending more time on the black and grey sides of my world, than the colorful ones. I realize now that I have to make it a practice to pause and pay attention to all the everyday things that are beautiful and right - I want to notice them and make a note of sending up my thanks for them.

So here's what I'm grateful for today (from Saturday's journal) -

• Waking up early, on dark cool mornings, and watching the clouds while waiting for the sun to come up.
• The pleasant soreness in my body reminds me of the lovely long yoga session this morning
• The coffee and scone afterwards, sitting on a stone bench, hidden high up in the trees
• The first fall tree, falling water, counting rings on a fallen tree, lemony yellow leaves, sun and shade
• Visit to the pet shop with my son, to look at baby kittens
• Strings of starlings stretched across the sky at the end of the day, like a ruffled edge of a cloud-skirt
• My journal - it helps keep me sane