“The Gratitude Intention”, Going Strong on Day four!

Good morning folks! Welcome to the fourth day of my gratitude invoking experiment. For those that have been following my journey, welcome back! For those that just found “My Life Experiment” today, I am happy you stopped in! To get up to speed on what this experiment consists of please check out “Stay Woke with the Gratitude Intention.” There are also days one through three to read up on to get the full picture of what has happened during “The Gratitude Intention” so far!

Alright, time to get into how day four went down. In a lot of ways the day four was very similar to the past days I have written about. Though I find it important to write about it and read about it, even though they may look similar there are a lot of little details that are different. I find it important to notice these little details, because sometimes just the slightest detail can bring to light an aspect of the process that is of great importance.

I woke up pretty early on this chilly North Dakota Saturday, but i also had a recovery meeting to attend early this morning. I didn’t get a chance to write my gratitude list of ten things, I got 4 done in kind of a rushed way and I was cool with that. I can have a tendency to follow my routines a little too strictly and be too hard on myself when i don’t follow them “to the T”. But thankfully I have learned that it really doesn’t solve anything to beat myself up over “missing the mark.”. It’s like the dieter that eats a meal that they shouldn’t have (been there). What is best, to badger myself with guilt, or just move on and set my sights on getting back on track? I prefer the second option by a landslide!

My afternoon was geared toward appreciating the things around me. When I was driving around I turned off the music and was very mindful about how great my life is. I was breathing deeply, I was easily letting go of any stress inducing thoughts that arose. Moments like this are truly awesome, no fear, just freedom. I didn’t really find it necessary to stop fully and meditate on the things I was grateful for, since I was already feeling plenty of gratitude. But I did anyway, because that is what I set out to do in the experiment. I realize that even though I am only writing about this experiment short term (I think its temporarily anyway), that if the gratitude routine is beneficial, then I will be continuing it indefinitely. And if I am going to continue it then i better “weld” these steps into my brain so they become habitual!

My night at work went about the same way. Although my focus was more on taking care of the needs of my client than focusing on gratitude. Although when my client went to sleep I did take the opportunity to finish writing up the gratitude list I couldn’t finish earlier. It felt great to finish writing that, it led the way for some emotion to arise, and that is most definitely something I appreciate. Then I went home after work, cleaned out the litter boxes, chatted with my wife for bit, then went to bed. I was able to have a couple of minutes to meditate on the beauty of the day, but before I knew it I was waking up to the alarm.

Once again, thank you for checking out “My Life Experiment!” I appreciate all of you and my hope is for you to have a wonderful day that is full of awareness for the things to be grateful for. We are now over halfway through “The Gratitude Intention,” so my mind is busy thinking of the next experiment to begin. I don’t know what this experiment is yet but I do know it is going to offer me the opportunity to create important changes in my life. If you are interested in what my next life experiment will be please follow “My Life Experiment” and stay in touch!

 

Things to remember:

• Everyday is different, and routines need flexibility.
• Its never too late to get back on track.
• I am trying to create a long-term habit here.

 

 

 

“The Gratitude Intention” Day Three!

Welcome! First off, for any new readers to get up to speed, please check out “Stay Woke with the Gratitude Intention.” Then if you would like to read day one and day two you can get a sense for what results I have had so far as a result of this process. If you have read all of them so far then thank you very much for being so supportive of  “My Life Experiment!”

Yesterday was my best morning yet! I woke up at 7 a.m., got my coffee, fed the cats, wrote my daily to do list and got busy on my gratitude list. I kept in mind what I remembered from Day two (make sure to put emotion into writing what I am grateful for), and I finally made it to writing ten things to be grateful for and WHY, unlike my first two days! Thankfully I had a particularly easy time thinking of things to be grateful for, and invoking the feeling of gratitude from them.

Throughout the day I began developing a busy mind, I felt excited, but also a bit edgy. I was pretty stuck to my phone, watching stocks, watching my blog stuff, getting work texts. I wasn’t really watching to see if I was breathing well though, I also wasn’t looking around for things to be grateful for as much as I was the other two days. When it became time to close my eyes and meditate it was actually difficult. I believe it was around 4 p.m. before I got myself in a place where I could meditate well enough to say I accomplished my goal. But I am happy with how the session turned out!

As the day went on I stayed in a halfway good mood and halfway anxious mood. I would describe the state I was in as highly motivated with out the mindfulness needed to keep myself from creating stress from thoughts that don’t need to create stress. Later on in the day I did finally catch up to the knowledge that I needed to slow my phone roll down, and just breathe. I also did a little writing about my baby girl that will be showing up in a couple months, and that had a calming effect as well!

Then I finally made it home, after my wife and I retrieved the cat food I forgot in the shopping cart in the parking lot at Target! We ate some late night pizza (I was very hungry). I checked my computer for any last minute things and then off to bed I was. Before I knew it I was zonked out sleeping! I forgot to remind myself of my bedtime meditation and so it never became a thing (I was very tired). Thinking the day over I guess the acronym H.A.L.T (see below) comes into play. I was hungry and I was tired, but I made it through the day well with all things considered!

Thank you so much for checking out “My Life Experiment”, tomorrow I will post day four for you and I am determined to pump as much gratitude into my life as I can possibly stomach today. This should make for an interesting read tomorrow! I wish you all the time in to world to cultivate your own gratitude in this day! But remember, just because it isn’t always easy to do, It always seems to be worth the effort.

 

Things to Remember

-I am not always going to find it easy to be grateful, and that is okay.

-Motivation is great, but it is much more neurotic and stressful without mindfulness.

-The acronym H.A.L.T (Hungry, Angry, Lonely, Tired) this is an acronym that means whenever I am in too much of any of these feeling states, I should be very careful of what I think, do, or say.

 

 

 

 

 

 

First Day of “The Gratitude Intention”!

Good morning everyone! So, if you read my last post you may remember that I set the Intention to cultivate gratitude to see if it helps me stay more alert and connected to my life. I decided that for every day of the experiment, I would also make sure to add a blog post the day after (hopefully first thing in the morning), to update any things I am noticing about the process.
Yesterday I spent my first day writing my morning to-do list and gratitude list, and taking time outs for gratitude meditation. I ended up waking a little earlier than normal to write my daily lists, I was somewhat groggy, but brewed up the coffee, fed the cats, and got down to “brass tax”. Generally, I would like to sleep in for as long as I can in the morning, because it feels great! Maybe the other reason is like my wife says, “because we will be parents soon and we won’t be sleeping much anymore!”
While I was writing the lists, I had a familiar feeling but a very good one. First of all let me show you an example of the first gratitude I wrote. “I am truly grateful that I get to wake up in this beautiful new home of ours every morning! I adore living here. As I walk around to our different rooms and see what Casey and I now own, I feel a ton of gratitude. It is such a gift to live here”. Suffice it to say after writing five of these (note that I set out to do 10), I was feeling comfortable and ready to start my day.
You may have noticed that I didn’t end up writing as many things to be grateful for as I set out to do. I am alright with this because even writing just five of them worked very well for me. I also didn’t find the time to take my ten to fifteen minutes to meditate in the afternoon. Although I did find little moments throughout the afternoon to take a few deep breaths, relax, and think about what there is too appreciate! That worked great, but I will be getting to the routine as planned, tomorrow. Though by going off track from the routine I was reminded how powerful taking a couple of good breaths is for getting myself back to the moment!

At the end of my night I got back into the experiment as planned. I laid down, closed my eyes, did some relaxed breathing, and for roughly 15 minutes I allowed the things I appreciated about the day to flow through my mind. It was a great way to end my night. When something came to my mind that felt like it added more pressure to the moment (such as scheduling issues, money issues, etc..), I reminded myself that I would get back to taking care of that issue tomorrow. I ended my day grateful, then dozed off and slept like a baby!

So day one was a positive experience, I seem to be honing my routine still, which is good. Today I am off on the right track and I will tell you more about it tomorrow! Thanks for checking out “My Life Experiment” once again or for the first time! Now here is a recap of some of the benefits I noticed from this process yesterday!

Benefits

-I woke up early just to get my lists done.

-I found myself naturally coming to use my breathing to keep me in the moment.

-I found myself thinking of more ways to be grateful for throughout the day.

-I was generally in a pretty good mood.

-I slept great!

–

 

Stay Woke with “The Gratitude Intention!”

Hello again folks, thanks for stopping in! So, after completing the last experiment, something has been on my mind. Over the last couple day’s I have been thinking about how the decision and commitment to find more qualities to appreciate, seemed to frame my mind to see more qualities to appreciate. It also gave me a little boost of energy, put me in a better mood, and made life a little more interesting to live. There is something very cool about that!

For me, it seems that I can spend a little too much time not paying close enough attention to what I am doing. It is too damn easy for me to get locked into my daily or even weekly routine and then basically go into autopilot with what is coming up next.  Autopilot works alright for keeping things maintained for a while. But before long I find myself very bored, even stressed out, and probably a little more moody.

Thankfully over the last several months my wife and I have made quite a few decisions that have created more way more challenges to deal with. They are beautiful challenges, but they are challenging nonetheless! I had a job change. We just moved into a new house with a nice new mortgage to pay, and we have our first baby coming in just a couple months!  With these new changes there really isn’t much room for me to be day dreaming and going into autopilot mode.

I am happy to say that I am making the firm decision to use these opportunities to wake myself up to a better, more mindful way of living. The stakes are getting higher now, and there is no way I am slipping back into my comfort zone!

Now, back to framing my mind with my decisions, or I think I would rather call it “Setting Intention.” Over the next week I am “Setting the Intention” that I will pay better attention to my daily affairs. I will be more awake and aware of the options around me, the gifts they are, and the gifts that will come from them. In order to do this I am going to piggy back on “The Compliment Experiment” and work on staying in a state of gratitude in order to keep myself focused on the goodies that may be coming throughout my day.

For the next week I intend to take at least 3 opportunities throughout my day to cultivate gratitude.

1. In the morning, before I do anything else (aside from getting myself some coffee, and the cats some food) I will write a short To-do List to help get me focused on what is coming up in my day. Then I will write 5 things I am grateful for and WHY I am grateful for them. This routine is similar to a process I used for roughly 4 years that brought great benefits into my life, I welcome it back with open arms.
2. In the afternoon I will take a brief break to close my eyes and meditate for 10 minutes to do a little run through about the things there were to appreciate throughout my morning. Then I will say a heart felt thank you for all the good things there are to come.
3. Before I go to bed I will give another 10 to 15 minutes to give some thought to the things I have appreciated throughout the day. Then I will say a heart felt thank you for all of the good things that will be showing up tomorrow.

Like I said I will be partaking in this experiment for the next week. For the next week I will write short updates on any cool things I am noticing about the process. Also, I may post some articles about  about routines I that currently bring positive results into my life that once started as experiments, but now are just what I do. Thank you for checking out “My Life Experiment”. If you feel like participating in this experiment with me, feel free! If you do participate, I would love to hear about your experience in the comments section. One week from today  I will post the “Gratitude Intention” on Wednesday January 10^th!

Getting Results with the “Compliment Experiment”!

Welcome back to My Life Experiment! If you are returning to read this blog, you may remember that I decided to partake in a “Compliment Experiment.” If you have not been here before and want to know what I am talking about, please check out the last article “Time to Open Myself Up with the Compliment Experiment” to get filled in. I wrote the “Compliment Experiment” article 5 days ago, that gave me 5 days to focus on giving more and better-quality compliments to people around me.

During the 5 days of the experiment I did find it was easier to compliment others at times, and at other times it just wasn’t going to happen. There were times where I simply could not think about anything else other keeping myself from freaking out (let alone compliment someone)! There were other times where the compliments came out easily, with a smile. As well, a couple of times I worked myself through with a struggle and came out feeling great!

Just yesterday I finally found out that the lady that helped me total my car, in fact, does not have car insurance. After getting that news, I found it very difficult to give any compliments. I was pissed off. Offering pleasantries felt against the grain, but I kept the experiment in mind and started looking for some opportunities to give compliments. I complimented a friend of mine, my wife, and then I just started complimenting myself in my thoughts. What started out as a very difficult emotional state, eventually worked into me feeling great.

In the last article I mentioned the process of saying three positive things after saying something critical about somebody. As I paid attention to myself I found that I critique things pretty much constantly, much of the time out loud to people, but far more often inside of my own skull. It is actually pretty overwhelming to think how often my mind goes for the negative (for whatever reason that is). Pointing out too many “flaws” in people (myself included) doesn’t really lead to very happy relationships! That probably isn’t a shocker to many people, but hey I guess I am a slow learner at times.

 

I feel that this experiment has helped me see a method for developing more appreciation for any relationship that I am a part of with others, myself, my job or life itself. This experiment did not tell me that I shouldn’t be critiquing any person or thing in my world (since a critique can help see something that needs to be fixed). But it has shown me that if I desire to be a grateful person, with happy relationships, that I better be filling up my relationships with appreciation for the qualities I enjoy.

The experiment also showed me a high-quality method for processing my emotions and keeping myself healthy, growing, and becoming more efficient. As well, it showed me that when I’m alone with myself and talking about myself, that it is just as important to be giving myself enough compliments. Quite often, I am definitely my own worst critic, and that it is much easier to notice the qualities I enjoy in others when I am grounded in the recognition of my own. And last of all, sometimes I am not going to be able to see the good in hardly anything but I don’t have to be too harsh on myself even if I cannot..

Thanks for checking out “My Life Experiment”, I feel that I know myself a little bit better after writing it. And now you probably know me quite a lot better! Now stay tuned because there is always something new to work on, and I look forward to having you read about my next challenge! If you have any questions are insights feel free to leave a comment!