Archive for September, 2009
Deliberate appreciation
It is 5.39 am PST as I write this blog. I’ve been awake since about 3 am thanks to my internal EST clock. I took a few days to get away to a meditation retreat here in Mount Shasta. It is my first time here. Strangely enough, and of course universal conspiracy is at play, I found this retreat on ggole when I was looking for pictures of Mt. Shasta for my face book page. The Blue Marble 4LIFE’s ‘gratitude’ earth marbles are made here in Mt. Shasta by Shasta Visions from recycled glass to conserve the environment and save the trees. The mission at Shasta Visions is also to create PEACE through the sales of their products. How I found out about them is a story for another day.
Anyway, I arrived at Medford airport in Oregon and drove 88 miles. It was different kind of driving, mountain driving for a suburbia girl. I had to force myself to focus on the road as my eyes kept drifting to the landscape that absolutely took my breath away, so fresh and new from the silhouette of buildings and building, and more buildings where I come from. Finally I saw Mt. Shasta. I felt humble appreciation for being allowed to be here and just experiencing this magnificent site.
I thought this morning about deliberate appreciation and making it a habit every single day to feel gratitude and appreciation in our lives every single day. I heard once a short piece on YouTube from Abraham-Hicks that gratitude and appreciation is different. My understanding from it is that gratitude is an act and appreciation is a state of mind you get into as you carry out that act of being grateful. I guess you cannot appreciate anything unless you are grateful or thankful. These are just my thoughts.
As I mentioned in my last piece, I have been faced with many challenges and hurdles to jump lately but when I put all of it in perspective, in the third person watching my life, I have to say that I am very fortunate that I am aware of what actually is happening and I have been given the inner strength, the tools and most importantly the grace to handle the situation with calm confidence. It still takes a lot of energy from me as I am still a student in this life journey and I have a lot of learning to do….but…I am still very grateful.
Also, I have been blessed with many connections recently coming my way to expand on how the ‘gratitude’ earth marble can go around the world, and now a good possibility on how I can implement the children’s program ‘Backpack 4LIFE’ into effect. As I said universal conspiracy is at hand and the right people are showing up. The truth of it is like that book called You2 by Price Pritchett states, that quantum leap happens as soon as your vibrational level increases to go to the next level which is not linear climbing but a quantum leap!
So how can you deliberately appreciate your life and everything in it today? Well, just like the words say…make a conscious deliberate decision to appreciate and be thankful for every single thing in your life today that you are able to accept…like the ability to read, to write, to speak, to share….these are all things we take granted for…appreciate them.
Much gratitude
Elizabeth
GratitudeMania…the magic continues
Synchronicity….when you are in alignment with the universe this incredible universal conspiracy happens and magic takes place!
The gratitude mania continues with blue angel Sandy Harper preparing to celebrate gratitude in ‘Celebration’ Florida 
on Sept 26th 2009. She is also the gratitude boot camp diva living on purpose to reach out and teach people why it is so vital and important to be in this space of absolute thankfulness.
So I know we say let’s feel gratitude and be thankful but let me ask you how we could accomplish it when things are not going our way or when things happen way beyond our control our soul suffers. This is how I have been feeling for the last few weeks. I felt so pulled down that I could barely keep my chin up during the day without tearing up. I felt helpless, I felt so many emotions and I found myself trying to even block it at moments. I know I have inner strength so within myself I observed myself and how I was feeling. When you are living your purpose, even when you feel like something happened to bring you down you KNOW that you are supported divinely. So, I made a very conscious effort to be thankful every day for what I could see as things that were keeping me safe and sound and nurtured. It was an exercise at first of the mind versus the heart. The mind and ego wanted to be mad and angry and just go arrrghhhh…you get the picture. The heart wanted to just say that all this can happen but I have the strength within to handle this crisis and I will get the help from those who are truly my soul friends. I am happy to report that in the last 3 weeks I faced it, I faced it with grace and amazing calmness and I know it took a lot of inner strength for that today my dear friends I acknowledge appreciation and gratitude to those here in my universe and to God . I know I am still being blessed abundantly through this ordeal.
We all face this every single day in every area of our life. How do we respond or do we re-act and think we have no control. It is true what many teachers of gratitude say about this feeling place you get into. I feel compassion and humility because it puts things in perspective when I come from that place of gratitude and appreciation. It is a state of being rather than an act of saying ‘thank you’ or ‘gratitude’.
Appreciation….thankfulness….just really being humbly honest in our feeling is very important. I keep saying gratitude is humility awakened and it is…when we appreciate life and its path no matter what it is then we can feel that feeling of humility…it is just simply that I feel…others might disagree. If we can go into our heart and within we will accomplish so much PEACE in this world…
My dear friends out there….when you hold the gratitude marble in your hands, say to yourself ….
“THE WORLD IS IN MY HANDS, WHAT I DO WITH IT IS UP TO ME”….
Let’s keep that in our heart every single day.
Much gratitude
Elizabeth
Gratitude Mania
The light from within….
As planned the first gratitudemania took place at VISIONS Restaurant Bethesda, MD on August 24th.
What struck me the most was as each person took a hold of the Peace marble in their hands there was this spark that ignited within them. There were a couple of very nervous individuals who wasn’t sure about being in front of the camera but they stood there in their nervousness and what amazed me was that the words they uttered were so perfect and beautiful. And I know it is because it comes from within, their heart, their soul, and their spirit. There is a connection that occurs as they get into that space of gratitude allows them to say those words.
And it is this very phenomenon that we want to infect into people globally so we can all understand that we have a past to deal with that is filled with many mistakes, but instead of trying to blame and not do anything why not we make an effort to move forward towards a peaceful and positive future.
Yes, there are many others who have this same mission, and this is wonderful, we are just joining that mission so our kids, our future generation can proudly say that we made an effort to hand them down a beautiful earth that can thrive socially and environmentally, not a mess for them to try and figure out. We still have time if we make an effort NOW. So, I hope that each of you who is reading this blog will go into that place within you and join this cause because we all want to make a difference.
Please go to www.bluemarble4life.com and watch the video.
Join the BlueMarble facebook group as well!
Much gratitude
Elizabeth for the Blue Marble team