"Attitude for Gratitude"
It has been a bit of a tough week for me personally, but there have been a few little things that have brightened my days. I am going to take this blog post to write about the little joys I've been lucky enough to encounter recently.
Wild flowers have been popping up all over Switzerland. Every day I sees flowering trees, bright daffodils, and vibrant crocuses on my bus rides, walks through town, and on my running routes. Sometimes I see small fields blanketed with tiny blue, purple, or white flowers that give the illusion of multicolored grass. While most large trees are still bare and the skies are still grey most days, the emerging buds and small flowers bring joy to the landscape as well as my heart. Thank you, Mother Nature!
I had the privilege of getting to go to a massive Monet show in Basel last weekend at the Fondation Beyeler. Claude Monet is my favorite painter and it made my so happy to see almost 70 of his works all in one place. It can be so calming to be in a room of strangers, all enthralled in the same works of art. It’s similar to what people say about going to concerts and how masses of people can convene with the same amount of passion, for different reasons, around the same works…except in a more quiet and contemplative way. One thing I love so much amount Monet’s work is first and foremost the wide array of colors he uses; bright, vibrant, pastel, dark, and everything in between. With this array of colors he is able to create such specific and enthralling atmospheres like the fog setting over Waterloo Bridge in London or a sunset over a rocky beach. I also love that Monet is capable of creating such detailed landscapes and paintings from such broad brush strokes. The texture created on the canvas in the impressionist style brings grassy, rocky, watery landscapes to life in a way some more exact painting styles can’t.
I listened to a podcast recently by Freakonomics Radio called “Why Is My Life So Hard?” about the headwinds and tail winds we face in life and with what attitudes we approach them. This program included interviews with psychologists who talked about how it has been proven in a study that when people acknowledge their “tailwinds” each day, they are happier. When people take the time at the end of each day to acknowledge what they are grateful for in their lives and the elements of their lives that have helped them and supported them, they are generally happier. When I was younger, in order to help me with my low self esteem and generally pessimistic attitude, a dear friend of mine encouraged me to say something positive about myself at the end of each day; we called it PTOD-ing which stands for “positive thing of the day.” This isn’t the same as practicing gratefulness, but it’s another habit that I think could make an incredible difference in one’s state of mind if they really dedicated themselves to it.
I hope you all can take the time to reflect on the positive things in your life as well. As hard and sometimes overrated mindfulness practices can be, they really are helpful.
*Note: The title for this blog post comes from a seminar I attended at Kripalu, a Yoga retreat center, in 2014. I think about this seminar often and I think this phrase is really important to remember.
🙌🌷🎨
