Lasting joy comes from being grateful for that which we cannot change.

Being grateful for the wonderful things in our life is easy, but I've learned lasting joy comes from being grateful for that which we cannot change.  I've found that being selective in my gratitude comes at a price and that price is joy.  During tough times I would often sit and list all the great things in my life and was instantly buoyed up but since those things are only part of my life I'd often slipped back into unhappiness.  It wasn't until I decided to start being grateful for all, that's right, the good, the bad and the ugly, that I felt a shift in my joy.  

Now if I deem something in my life not worthy of my gratitude I will ask myself, "Do you, or can you, change and/or stop it?"  If the answer is no, for whatever reason, then it's reasonable there must be some redeeming quality about it, so I try and find my way to gratitude. 

It's tough when it's a life altering situation, especially one you would not have chosen. Like most people there are events that have happened in my life that I'm anything but grateful for, but it is those exact events that are stealing my joy, or rather I am allowing, to steal my joy.  Last night I arrived home to find a piece of mail that I've known was coming and kept telling myself that I would be okay with it when it did.  Well, I wasn't.  Feelings of sadness and failure came rushing up and I was very grateful I had no chips or ice cream in the house.  I decided to just let the feelings flow through me and trust that gratitude would come.  I had a fitful sleep last night and a heavy hearted morning.  And did not have time to walk this morning and wow, did my brain need it!

On my way to WW today I played a new CD I had bought last week by Wayne Dyer called, "Change Your Thoughts, Change Your Life" and one of the verses he quoted from Tao Te Ching was "Amidst the rush of worldly comings and goings, I observe how all endings become beginnings."  I hit repeat, and again, and again, and again....and there, on the 401, I was able to find a small path to gratitude.  Finding the gratitude doesn't have to mean that we're glad things happened, finding the gratitude helps us release the pain of what has happened and allow us to find joy.  The joy of what is possible in a new beginning.