Stop Waiting To Enjoy Life - Enjoy The Moments As They Come

As a new student and young father I had to work my butt off to keep up with school, family, work and all the other responsibilities that I had. I was working two part time jobs just to make ends meet and I was in school full time so I could graduate on time and move on to grad school. Times were tough and money was tight. I had to work hard just to keep my head above water. Some months we didn’t make it and had to go without some things. This was the hardest for me as a father. At these times I felt like a real loser and a failure. I felt like I wasn’t living up to my end of the deal in my family. Because money was tight, I had to make sure I stayed at the top of my class so I could go to a good graduate program that would allow me to demand a strong income in my first job. So I put a lot of time into studying. And in the mean time I put as much time into my two jobs as I could so I could pay the rent and buy diapers.

My daughter was less than a year old and didn’t know what our financial situation was. Being that young, she didn’t really care. But her big brown eyes and her innocence made me want to work harder at school and at work just to make sure that she would have everything she needed. My wife didn’t really care about our finances, either. Somehow we continued to get by. But for me it was miserable.

As a poor college student and young father working and studying so hard I found myself in the throes of a full blown, self-inflicted anxiety disorder. I had so many balls I was juggling at once that I planned my time in 15 minute increments. I developed a nervous habit of always checking my watch. Homework took about 2 hours a night - unless a paper was due then it was 2 hours and 45 minutes a night that week. It took about 15 minutes to drive to work. If I got a flat tire or someone showed up late to relieve my shift at work, I had to push back whatever family event was happening that weekend to make up for lost time. If I showed up late for work, it was X amount out of my paycheck (I knew exactly how much it was after tax back then) and I needed to make up for it by staying late. If there was a birthday (or, gasp, Christmas) that month I had to work a couple extra shifts and that meant I had to find time to my homework who-knows-when. I learned that necessities like sleeping and eating were really just added bonuses that people didn’t need that much of – or so I thought.

I was in the thick of things and couldn’t see the light at the end of the tunnel. I hardly saw my wife and baby because I was too busy trying to provide for them. For me, life was work. And not the leisurely kind where you could browse your computer while you do it. It was hard, exhausting, and consuming. I had to get ahead and stay ahead. This is all I could see and it was going to be this way for a while – at least until I graduated grad school in a few years.

Fast forward a few years and thankfully I have overcome those feelings and thoughts that once consumed me. But it’s not because I finally made the income that I was aiming for – I haven’t. It’s because I deliberately let go of the pretension and consumerism and the constant striving to attain things and status.

Instead of waiting for someday to enjoy life I’m able to enjoy life’s moments as they come. I’ve slowed down, smelled the roses and am enjoying pieces of life one simple moment at a time. There were a lot of realizations that I had to come to during my journey In order for me to stop wishing for someday and enjoy the moments as they come. Perhaps the most important realization I had was the role gratitude plays in living a fulfilling and rewarding life.

Gratitude was what was missing.

As I was going through the throes of my anxiety and working my butt off for someday, I never gratefully appreciated the beauty that was around me. I was absorbed in living the American dream – an external standard that society told me I should be trying to attain, instead of looking inside myself and finding what would make me the most happy and bring me the feelings of satisfaction that are truly fulfilling for me. I thought that society would somehow magically give this to me after I achieved the status I was aiming for. But I realized that satisfaction isn’t given to you. I found it within myself through gratitude.

I realized that in my desire to achieve and always wanting more that I never noticed the great things that were around me and right in front of me. I would get stressed out when I got a flat tire and felt resentful that I didn’t have a better car instead of appreciating the fact that I had a car that could haul me at 65mph to wherever I needed to go. Sure, life isn’t all cherry drops and gum drops and I still have crap things that happen. But in the meantime, it’s gratitude that makes my life fulfilling and rewarding.

There are many gratitudes I discovered along the way that help me to find happiness no matter what my circumstances are:

1. I’m grateful to live in a country where the bare necessities (water, electricity, etc) are easy to come by. I realize I’m very privileged to have this and I’m grateful for it.
2. I’m grateful for poetry, music and art that give life its extra flavor.
3. I’m grateful that poetry, music and art are free on the radio, TV and in secondhand books that cost pennies.
4. I’m grateful for friends and family who love me for me. Who don’t care what I wear, what music I listen to or what income tax bracket I’m in. They simply love me for me and I love them for them. And together we have a friendship that’s more rewarding than prestige or monetary success.
5. I’m grateful for a country that protects its citizens and has laws in place to help them achieve, succeed and live in safety.
6. I’m grateful for children and their smiles that warm you up no matter how bad of a day you’ve had.
7. I’m grateful for nature and its many wonders and beauties. I’m grateful for easily accessible parks, streams and other places that I can enjoy the magnificent wonders of nature.

Most of all, I’m grateful for others. I’m surrounded by people who genuinely care about little old me with no reward for themselves. They have found something inherently good about me and love me for it. They don’t have to, they choose to. And for that I will always be grateful. It’s the love for me that I see in their eyes that truly brightens my day and makes me feel important.

[jbox title="About the author:" border="5" radius="15"]

Aaron Anderson is a Marriage and Family Therapist and owner of The Marriage and Family Clinic in Denver, CO. He also writes for several great relationship websites including the one you’re reading now, FamilyShare.com and the Huffingtonpost. He gives expert relationship information on his own blog RelationshipRx.net where you can get information for all your important relationship needs.

Want to get the 30 Day Gratitude Challenge sent to your email inbox every day? Fill out this little form here:

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Be Grateful For This Moment, This Moment Is Your Life!

The power of gratitude is simply AMAZING! We have definitely experienced gratitude’s power first hand many times throughout our lives. In fact, we believe in gratitude so much, we even created a whole blog category on our photography website dedicated to gratitude. Recently, it was the unexpected gratitude of a reader of our site AMAZING LifeTogether that truly blew us away.

Before we share that story, we need to give a little bit of the back-story of AMAZING Life Together first. My wife Liz and I have been wedding photographers for 5+ years now. Having photographed 100+ weddings, we’ve had the amazing opportunity to celebrate and document one of life’s most amazing moments, getting married, with some really amazing couples.

However, we’ve also seen a lot of the hype and materialism the wedding industry has placed on a single day. Each of our couples is truly special to us and we wanted to help them not only have an amazing wedding but also an amazing marriage and life together.

To do so we started the AMAZING Life Together site. Our goal was simply to inspire couples to do more of the things that made them fall in love with each, create an open line of communication about what marriage is like, and to show that even if things do get tough it’s still possible and worth it to work through those challenges to create an AMAZING Life Together.

As we put more and more time and more and more effort into the development of our site, we began to wonder if we were really making a difference in people’s lives. Or if anyone was even reading and watching what we were creating.

A few months back we were letting the fear and doubt monsters really get to us. They made us wonder if our efforts were worth continuing. And then we received this email that rocked our world with gratitude:

“You are saving my marriage. Literally. He wouldn't go to marriage counseling & I was on my way out. But he has been doing this challenge with me and it has us communicating again & more importantly, connecting. You have no idea what this means to us. You guys are doing amazing work & I am so grateful to have found you.” –Wife, Atlanta, GA

That simple email of gratitude, just 62 words, erased any doubts and fears we had. We knew in that moment that if we were able to help save one couple’s marriage, then no matter what, AMAZING Life Together was more successful than we ever could have dreamed it to be. Simple messages like that have continually given us the energy and passion to continue our AMAZING Life Together mission.

Our own experience isn’t unique. In fact there are numerous studies that have shown how powerful just being and feeling grateful can be.

According to a Wall Street Journal Article Published in 2010:

Adults who frequently feel grateful have more energy, more optimism, more social connections and more happiness than those who do not, according to studies conducted over the past decade. They're also less likely to be depressed, envious, greedy or alcoholics. They earn more money, sleep more soundly, exercise more regularly and have greater resistance to viral infections.

One of our favorite studies was an experiment in which participants keep gratitude journals.

Those who kept gratitude journals on a weekly basis exercised more regularly, reported fewer physical symptoms, felt better about their lives as a whole, and were more optimistic about the upcoming week – Gratitude: A Key to Happiness

In Nate’s original introduction to the 30-Day Gratitude Challenge he suggested starting and keeping your own gratitude journal. It turns out he was really onto something! J If you haven’t started your own journal, start today, it’s never to late.

The last thing we want to leave you with is something we think about often when we start feeling down or if we are failing to see as Nate says “the good in life.”

We all have one life, and no matter what, in this moment we have a choice that we can make. We can choose to be grateful and happy. Or we can choose not to be.

We choose gratitude and happiness.

What will you choose?

[jbox title="About the author:" border="5" radius="15"] Liz and Ryan are millennials, story tellers, wedding photographers, dream believers and AMAZING life inspirers. They are high school sweethearts, married for 7 years, and business partners for 5. Their dream is to inspire all couples to live a more AMAZING Life Together. Click here to learn more.

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What You Actually "Do" When You Say, "I Do"

From the moment I said “I do” on August 3, 2006, I really had no idea what I was going to have to actually “do” over the next eight years of my life. Yes, I chose him in sickness and in health, for rich or for poor, for better or worse (mostly “better” because as a newlywed, you don’t really anticipate just how bad things can be nor how “worse” they can become). What was somehow left out in my vows was, “Do you choose and commit to him through years of sexual challenge? Do you choose and commit to him while you both struggle in the uncharted territory of parenting? Do you choose and commit to him when you feel emotionally and spiritually a thousand miles apart?”

My story of gratitude begins on the best and the hardest day of my life -- the day I made it metaphorically to the base of Mount Everest. I abruptly realized that I don’t just get to set-up camp there and reconnoiter for a few months before making the climb. No, with the words “I do” my ascent began, ready or not (mostly not). Staring up at the daunting mountain, I reminded myself that I willingly choose to climb it with no training or experience; but ,thankfully, not without a guide or guides.

Gratitude and willingness have been my guides.

Like most people, I did not come from a childhood free from dysfunction. However, I also didn’t come from a childhood devoid of love. Thanks to the combination of both, I sought out therapy early in my life. I saw it as a positive for me and a way to learn and grow. I was going through therapy while dating different guys, always hoping to find my “one.” I had a general list of traits and qualities that I was looking for, but always wanted something deeper than “someone who can wakeboard” (one of my life’s passions.) I always knew that one day that wakeboarding champion could get injured, get old, or grow out of being a wakeboarder like other surface traits.

Through the gift of therapy, I learned that everyone has his or her crap. Everyone. This helped me conclude that I needed to find some “one” who would be willing to do “the work,” some “one” who wanted to climb Everest with me and recognized that we would need to confront challenges, dysfunctions, trials and growth edges.

Through many heartbreaks for which I am thankful, I met guys who wanted the great relationship without the work -- or expected that if it were really true love it would just work. Somehow, I knew that naïve approach simply wasn’t going to work. Call me a romantic pessimist, but when choosing to meld my life with someone else’s, I erred on the side of realism rather than romantic ideals. I finally found my “one” – a handsome, intelligent, fun, romantic guy (yes, he was a good wakeboarder, too) who was more than willing to do “the work.”

We are now eight years into our climb. When I look back I realize we have had a lot of moments where we were eye-balls’ deep in snow that could have sucked the life out of our relationship. However, we’ve also had moments where the sun has broken through, giving us the gift of warmth and the opportunity to sit, rest and just enjoy each other’s company. We have been in one of the hardest years of our climb – with the stresses of having two kids, with another on the way, but it’s also been the most transformative and beautiful. I find myself continually grateful that I have a partner who has never looked at me and said, “I’m done climbing, it’s not what I thought it would be” or “You climb and carry me; it’s your fault that our relationship is so hard.”

I treasure the moments where he has looked at me with watery eyes and a softened heart and thanked me for choosing him. It gives me the fuel I need to climb another day, to keep putting one foot in front of the other. When he expresses his gratitude and genuinely sees me for who I am and the strengths I bring to the table, it brings me a bit closer to him. It causes me to soften my sharp edges toward him and gives me the perspective to see him as we all are ... just trying to do the best we can with where we have come from and wanting to go to places in our relationship we have never known. I’m grateful that he sees me with gratitude as well.

I have a partner who has willingly engaged in “the work” or the metaphorical climb from day one. It’s not always fun but he he keeps climbing with me. Our mutual supportiveness and gratitude have carried us through storms that neither of us could have predicted when we said “I do.” As I see relationships around me crumble and fall, my gratitude for all we have only grows. No, our relationship isn’t perfect, but I wouldn’t choose any other partner to ascend the mountain. I have my daily moments where I write down what I am grateful for with my partner, and it guides me to the peak of Everest. The moment I said “I do” was the moment I said “I do commit” to keep doing the work, to keep climbing with my partner, with gratitude and willingness as my guides.

[jbox title="About the author:" border="5" radius="15"]

Kristin Hodson is a Sex and Intimacy Therapist and Founder of The Healing Group: Where Women Go For Hope, Growth and Healing. She has the mantra of work hard, play hard, love hard and lives life passionately outloud. She is an adjunct Professor at The University of Utah in the Social Work department, is co-author of the book, "Real Intimacy: A Couples' Guide to Healthy, Genuine Sexuality" and is currently co-authoring her second book, "Yes, You Can Talk To Your Kids About Sex." . She feels the greatest and most fulfilling pursuit in her life is having the privilege to mother her two spirited children and always being refined into a better person because of her husband.

This post is part of a 30-Day Gratitude Challenge. If you want to start from day 1, click here.

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Gratitude Is My Rocket Fuel

Hey Loveumentarians! So excited to be visiting today. Nate is one of my favorite people on earth. The Hubs and I are both enthusiastic supporters of The Loveumentary and Unbox Love.

So, when Nate asked me to write about gratitude my very first thought was, “Of course! Gratitude is my rocket fuel.”

Gratitude for me isn’t just a feeling, it’s an activity that I engage in daily.

I am pretty sure that I first got the notion that gratitude was something you could practice, like guitar, from watching Oprah. She was interviewing Sarah Ban-Breathnach, the author of a book called Simple Abundance: A Daybook of Comfort of Joy and they talked about the idea of creating a gratitude journal.

I had never heard of such a thing at the time but I have had a general rule since about high school, that if it’s good enough for Oprah, and doesn’t require a billion dollars to do, it is most certainly good enough for me to try.

Oprah bought T-shirt sheets, I got t-shirt sheets. Oprah had frozen hot chocolate while visiting New York city, I had frozen hot chocolate the next time I went.

And so on.

So when she said to pull out a journal and write 3 things you were grateful for that day, I tried it.

There are worse things a teenager could experiment with, I am sure.

The idea behind the journal was that the more you notice and appreciate things and experiences you are grateful for, the more of those good things and experiences come into your life.

Kind of like the law of attraction, gratitude edition.

The thing is even though I am a writer, I am absolutely terrible at keeping any kind of journal for any prolonged period of time.

Truly, truly terrible.

So I didn’t keep that up (sorry Oprah!). But, I did create my own gratitude tradition that I absolutely love and was totally inspired by Ms. O.

Every year sometime during the Thanksgiving holidays I take some time alone and write down 100 things I am grateful for.

It is positively amazing how many details you notice about life when you have set a goal to get to 100. After your immediate loved ones and lofty things like health and safety, you start noticing how grateful you are for things like:

• Paved roads
• Cold Stone Creamery Birthday Cake Re-mix Ice cream
• Shellac Manicures
• Every single one of your favorite TV shows
• Your husband’s smile when you go on vacation
• Your best friend’s laugh
• Kit Kats (especially British ones – the chocolate is mixed differently).
• Blogs. Friends. Laptops. Coffee.

And so it goes, until you get to 100.

Every time I make my list I notice how much of life there is to love.

There is so much and there is a seemingly infinite amount of tiny things that bring me huge amounts of joy.

I absolutely love the feeling I get when I notice and appreciate so many blessings.

But I am absolutely terrible at writing them down every day, so I decided I’d make gratitude lists whenever. In my head, but like all the time.

What I do is whenever I am paused at a red light, standing in line, or at any other random moment that feels good, I say, “Name 5 things you are grateful for, go!”

Best game ever, right?

The most random things come up.

Right now it would be

1. The gourmet chocolate candy bar that had pieces of potato chip in it (tasted like Crunch but saltier)
2. Really comfortable shoes
3. My bed. (I haven’t slept in it in a couple of days and can’t wait to see my pillow again).
4. The sound of my hubby breathing when he is sleeping.
5. Caffeine Free Coke Zero

See? Absolutely the most random things ever. And yet, I smile just thinking about them.

I savor the beauty and wonder and power of life.

And I don’t wait to write in a journal.

I do it now.

What I have found over the years is that like guitar, you get better at gratitude with practice. It comes easier, becomes more natural and shifts your mood quicker the more you do it. It’s kind of like taking a vitamin for your heart and mind.

Practicing gratitude is important to me because it helps me remember all the good in my life, especially when I am going through something bad.

In my opinion, the highest, most advanced level of gratitude you could practice, is being able to feel gratitude for your problems.

I totally love feeling gratitude for my blessings. Easy right? Still important to stop and actually DO IT – whether you write it, sing it, say it in your head or post it on Facebook.

But feeling gratitude for my problems – that has been probably the biggest mind shift ever.

Here is how I do it:

Years ago I attended a training called the Landmark Forum. Some parts of it I loved, some parts of it I really didn’t care for at all. But my favorite lesson I learned there was when one of the workshop leaders said something to the effect of:

We all want our problems to go away.

Problems do not go away.

Rich people have problems. Single people have problems. Married people have problems. People who have what you think you want all have problems.

The key to problems is not to eliminate them.

The key is to continuously upgrade the quality of your problems.

Upgrade the quality of my problems?!?! That idea just blew me away. I really pondered and took that into my gratitude-filled mind where it came out as:

" Well, that’s a great problem to have.”

Example, sometimes I feel overwhelmed – career, marriage, family, friends – all good things, right? And yet, sometimes I am not sure how I am going to get it all done.

And I think, “well, that’s a great problem to have.” I think of the alternative – what if all of those things that are making me so busy, were suddenly missing from my life. Whoa. Instant perspective shift.

Instant gratitude adjustment.

That doesn’t mean I don’t have problems and definitely doesn’t mean I have them all covered.

It also doesn’t mean that some problems don’t flat out suck. Really bad stuff happens and I don’t want to minimize that, but the only way I know how to get through those really dark moments is to search for the glimpses of light inside them.

Gratitude helps me do that.

I hope it helps you too.

Now that we have established that gratitude is a practice – it’s your turn. Name 5 totally random, completely wonderful things you are grateful for right now – do it in the comments and we will all say thank you together.

[jbox title="About the author:" border="5" radius="15"] Maggie Reyes is a Life Coach, Writer + the Founder of ModernMarried.com. Her romantic-yet-practical approach to wedded bliss is regularly featured on Brides.com and The Happy Wives Club – the biggest wedding and marriage sites on the web.

Maggie loves all things Loveumentary and is excited to feature this great two part interview with Nate and Melissa on her site: Keeping Love Alive: Nate & Melissa The Loveumentary Interview and Love, Commitment and the Meaning of Marriage with Nate and Melissa from Loveumentary.com.

To read her favorite gratitude quotes click here. You can also click here to get a free gratitude list template to write your own 100 things along with an inspiring thankfulness-themed YouTube playlist. [/jbox]

The Gratitude Experiment

Early in my 25-year marriage, I was afraid to thank my husband for taking out the trash or washing the dishes. I thought if I thanked him, he would think those jobs were optional and stop doing them. I also wanted to make sure that he learned to do household chores the right way — my way. If I thanked him for a job that wasn’t done to my standards, I felt I’d never get him to shape up and do those tasks properly.

That’s why, when my husband did the dishes I said, “That’s great, but how about wiping off the counters now?” which was no thanks at all. That was a big plate of dismissal with a heaping side of criticism. I feel so sad for that younger version of myself who had no concept of the power of the practice of being grateful and was so miserable as a result.

As you can imagine, my husband wasn’t very inspired to help around the house because every time he tried, I either redid what he had just done or pointed out what he’d done wrong, like I was his grumpy boss.

As a result, I was responsible for doing everything, and I quickly became overwhelmed and resentful.

I didn’t know then that resentment is the opposite of gratitude, but it’s true. You can’t feel grateful and resentful at the same time. Since I didn’t know that, I spent years feeling like my mother on her worst day. My marriage suffered, and I insisted we go to marriage counseling so the counselor could fix him and I could finally be happy. When even counseling didn’t help, I finally turned to women who had long, happy marriages for advice. What they said shocked me because it was so different than what I’d seen and learned growing up.

It turns out there are six intimacy skills, which you’d think they would teach in Relationships 101 at every college, but they didn’t teach it at mine. When I stick to the intimacy skills, things go well at my house. We’re playful and relaxed. I feel connected and cherished, and the passion runs high. His face lights up when I come home. We rarely fight or have the long cold wars we used to endure.

When I forget about the intimacy skills, as I sometimes do, things don’t go so well around here. That’s how important the intimacy skills are.

The most powerful of the six skills is expressing gratitude—not when you feel it, but as a ritual or a discipline. To paraphrase Arthur C. Clarke, it’s powers are indistinguishable from magic.

One of the wise married women made this suggestion: Just express gratitude to your husband every day.

That didn’t make any sense to me. After all, I was doing everything around the house and no one was thanking me. But I was desperate to not be divorced, even though I often threatened it. Finally, I made myself come up with a few things to thank him for. I decided as an experiment to share three gratitudes a day, so I’d know for sure I was really doing it. That way if it didn’t work, I could say I tried.

I begrudgingly said, “Thanks for working hard to support our family.”

Next came, “Thanks for taking out the trash.”

Finally, “Thanks for trimming the tree.”

To my surprise, my husband went looking for more ways to help out. He even volunteered to do the dishes again, having apparently forgotten that I deemed him not properly trained for the task. When he was done, I thanked him, and I actually felt grateful. I could see he really wanted to make me happy, and when he succeeded it just inspired him to do even more for me.

As I continued with my three gratitudes a day, it became obvious my husband really was helpful and did do a lot to lighten my load. This was a shock. Since what we focus on increases, my newfound practice of focusing on what I appreciated made those things increase. But because I had also changed my attitude, he was responding to me with more generosity, and his own gratitude. “Thanks for putting the laundry away,” he started saying, and, “I appreciate you making us this wonderful dinner.” I nearly fell out of my chair. I had to admit, I loved feeling appreciated too.

That’s why, of the six intimacy skills I discovered when I was trying to save my marriage, I consider gratitude to be the most powerful of all. It does double duty because it changes my focus, which changes the way I perceive my situation. But it also changes my reality because it changes the way my husband responds to me.

It’s been over 17 years since I started giving my husband three gratitudes a day, and I can’t imagine life any other way now. There’s quite a culture of gratitude at our house. We thank each other all day long—often more than three times. It feels good, and helps us both remember how fortunate we are. It also helps us feel connected and affectionate. I’m no longer the martyr who exhausts herself trying to do everything. In fact, while I was writing this piece, my husband washed all the dishes and took out the trash.

I couldn’t be more grateful.

[jbox title="About the author:" border="5" radius="15"] Laura Doyle is a radio show host, New York Times best-selling author of The Surrendered Wife : A Practical Guide to Finding Intimacy, Passion, and Peace with Your Man, and the founder of Laura Doyle Connect, an international relationship coaching company that teaches women the intimacy skills they need to have passionate, peaceful relationships. Follow her on Twitter here.

Want to get the 30 Day Gratitude Challenge sent to your email inbox every day? Fill out this little form here: [gravityform id="2" name="Subscribe" title="false" description="false"]

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What Is Unsaid In Your Heart?

He awoke at 5am and crawled out of bed, with a sparkle of mischief in his eye. I closed my eyes and drifted back into dreamland.It was a few hours later when he and I stood in a circle with a group of inspired creatives and entrepreneurs. "As we close this retreat..." I said. "I invite you to share any closing reflections." That's the moment he flashed me the smile that makes my heart melt. I knew he was up to something.

"I have something to share," he said, confirming my suspicions. He nervously sidestepped back and forth in his adorable boyish manner. "I'm grateful for how each of you have impacted my life," he said. "And through the words of Rumi, who puts what my heart feels into words far better than I, I have a message for each of you."

I couldn't believe what I was hearing. I couldn't believe this man speaking before me is the one I am spending my life with. His heart, his compassion, his unwavering kindness -- I felt in awe. This man I am lucky to call my fiancé never ceases to give generously, and do it from the heart. 

As he went around the circle, I watched face after face light up with glee. As they shined brighter, he did too. In fact, we all did! It's there that I truly felt the ripple effect of gratitude, and how a few words can change you.

As he completed the circle, he finished with me, sharing something I'll never forget. He said, "The minute I heard my first love story, I started looking for you, not knowing how blind that was. Lovers don't finally meet somewhere. They're in each other all along."

Gratitude, too, is within us all along. It takes only a simple expression from the heart, and it may always be remembered.

So I leave you with this: What is unsaid in your heart, that you feel called to express? 

[jbox title="About the author:" border="5" radius="15"] Amber Rae is a writer + entrepreneur + traveler + lifestyle designer.

Currently, she's writing a book in 100 days. Here I share the ups and downs of the creative process in hopes of inspiring you to do your most inspired work.

Formerly, I launched six best-selling books in six months as Chief Evangelist of Seth Godin's Domino Project and launched accelerator for your life, Bold Academy. [/jbox]

How To Make Your Marriage Feel Like a 24/7 Slumber Party

If I had to name just one practice that is most critical in keeping my relationship with my husband Kiran strong, positive, connected and alive, I would say gratitude. By this I mean not just feeling a daily heartfelt appreciation for the Love of My Life, but expressing it aloud. We tell each other every day without fail, “You are the most important thing to me. I feel so blessed. You are extraordinary. I’m so lucky to be married to you.”

This habit comes naturally to us because we found each other in middle age. Both of us had been married before, divorced, and then spent several years struggling in unsatisfying relationships. When we came together at nearly 40, everything clicked—and we fully appreciated how rare that is. Our marriage feels like a 24/7 slumber party. We have so much fun, laughing, discussing topics grandiose and mundane, and creating together. And when we have to deal with life’s inevitable body slams, we’re there to support one another with compassion and tenderness.

But our attitude of gratitude is vital. What I love most is how gratitude unfailingly connects me to the beauty and magic of the present moment. Gratitude keeps me from dwelling on any perceived slights or injustices—getting upset or agitated if I feel that Kiran has ignored my needs, for example. I remind myself, “I’m so lucky. We adore each other. Surely I misunderstood.” And then we talk through what happened.

Gratitude also prevents me from spinning out into anxiety about the future. What we have here and now is a gift, and we can never know what might happen around the next curve in life’s highway. I can take a deep breath any time and sink into that warm, happy place in my heart where I know that I love and am loved. What else matters in life?

The way we express our gratitude for each other to each other every day keeps us both feeling secure and appreciated in our marriage. Insecurities fall by the wayside.

Trust builds with each passing year, creating a powerful foundation for our love.

You can’t overdo it when telling the people you love how much you love and appreciate them. Express your gratitude out loud every day.

[jbox title="About the author:" border="5" radius="15"] MeiMei Fox is the published author, co-author, ghostwriter, and freelance editor of hundreds of non-fiction health, wellness, spirituality, and psychology books, articles, and blogs, including New York Times bestsellers Bend, Not Break with Ping Fu and Fortytude with Sarah Brokaw. She has edited books by His Holiness the Dalai Lama and she blogs weekly for the Huffington Post, and her articles have been published in Self, Stanford magazine, MindBodyGreen, Forbes, and numerous other publications.

In addition to writing, MeiMei works as a life coach, assisting clients in realizing their most ambitious dreams. She believes in integrating mind, body, and spirit into a total wellness program based on positive self-esteem and goal-setting. Please contact her for more information.

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The Peace and Perspective of Gratitude

If you've ever spent time in a developing country you quickly develop gratitude for the amazing quality of life enjoyed by those living in the U.S. and elsewhere. And it's the little things you notice. If you have had access to ice cubes today consider yourself blessed. After spending a hot summer drinking nothing but warm coke, lukewarm water, and hot herbal tea there was nothing like coming home, walking to the freezer and adding some beautiful ice cubes to whatever drink I was drinking. That first sip of something cold was truly one of the greatest moments of my life.  As I write this I can still conjure the same depth of gratitude I felt for the miracle of those little squares of frozen water. Absolutely wonderful. I probably drove everyone crazy with my over-the-top enthusiasm for an icy drink, that's how grateful I was.

Since that time, over 20 years ago, that feeling of gratitude has stayed with me. And not just the gratitude for the ice cubes, but the lessons I learned from people who, materially, had nothing, but were happier then most people I knew who had a lot. They taught me about real and lasting happiness even in the midst of dire physical circumstances.

As I've continued my life-journey things haven't always -- or ever -- been "easy." Early in my marriage life was really tough. My husband was active duty Army and soldier pay isn't great. Combined with some poor choices we made, we teetered on the edge of financial destruction. One night I was invited to a get-together with some of the other wives of my husband's unit. We were all supposed to bring $1 to donate to help with the needs of another soldier's family. I searched all through our apartment and managed to scrape together $.97 before my ride picked me up. I fought back tears all the way to the party and by the time I arrived was feeling so sorry for myself and my life that I could hardly talk to or even look at anyone.

It didn't matter that I was driving in an air-conditioned car, wearing clean clothes, and going to a party partly celebrating freedom and friendship and where I was sure to have some great food. All I could focus on was my current plight and the deep shame, embarrassment and frustration I felt.

Upon arriving we walked inside a lovely home, filled with smiling women and the hostess immediately welcomed us with a hug and something else -- a cold drink. I numbly accepted her hug and drink and looked around for a corner to slink into. As I sipped my drink, with ice, and looked around the fog began to lift. I might not have a dollar in my wallet, at that moment, but no doubt that would change in the future. I lived in the United States where I had access to work, food, shelter, clothing, and so on and not just at a basic level. My quality of life, compared to so many others around the globe was, and is, disproportionately better and easier. The cold drink quickly reminded me just how much I did have.

Life is a constant struggle, but every time I plop an ice cube into my drink, I'm quickly reminded of all the great things about my life. Seven healthy kids -- which is amazing -- a great marriage, shelter with indoor plumbing and heat, a grocery store nearby, living in a place of relative peace and safety, and the list goes on an on.

Gratitude is something I practice because it bring me peace and perspective and allows me to see the good in my life. And it is good -- especially when there's cold drink in my hand.

[jbox title="About the author:" border="5" radius="15"] When she's not trying to corral seven energetic kids, Alisha is a Sex and Intimacy Coach at The Healing Group -- because everyone needs a hobby. She is passionate about anything purple, peanut butter and chocolate ice cream, and thrill rides. And she is married to Thor (or what Thor would look like if he settled down, fathered children, and didn't have as much time to work on those muscles). Drop her a line at askthesexsisters@gmail.com [/jbox]

Today Is A Beautiful Rainy Day!

I used to hate rainy days. They depressed me and made me want to kick something (or someone!) and crawl into a corner and sulk. And if I had to choose, I'd still pick sunny skies over rainclouds any day. But you know what?

Today I woke up and the sky was grey. The clouds were ominous. The air was cold and foggy.

And I fully expected to feel grumpy. I thought I'd want to retreat back beneath my covers before begrudgingly forcing myself to put my feet on the floor and begin my day.

But the strange thing is, none of these things happened.

I didn't want to kick anyone.

In fact, I sprang right out of bed. I looked right out the window, breathed in the cold, misty air, and I found myself exclaiming out loud with a smile:

TODAY IS A BEAUTIFUL RAINY DAY!

A strange and unfamiliar joy welled up within me as I took it all in: the beauty of the mist. The contrast of the lightness and darkness within the clouds. The feel of the cold air on my face, waking me up to life and to the joy all around me.

And then... get this, guys: I actually found myself feeling GRATEFUL FOR THE GRATITUDE ITSELF.

(Yes, that IS when you know you've become one of those annoyingly cheerful people .)

Wow, double gratitude... gratitude squared!

Don't get me wrong; I still have my bad days - the days where I cry and doubt and question and don't even want to get out of bed. Yes, these days still happen. Of course they do.

But that's a part of what comes along with the process of opening to life and to your emotions: in opening, you open yourself to the full array, the full spectrum of experiences. When shit gets painful, it HURTS deeply and fully. When things suck, they really suck.

But when things like joy and love and gratitude float into your experience, you feel them fully, too -- more fully than you ever thought possible.

In opening to the "good," you open to the "bad," too.

In opening to the "bad," you open to the "good," too.

And in each of these moments, good or bad, you are experiencing exactly what it is to be alive. Not to shut yourself off or to be "safe" or numb, but to be fully alive.

And that's my greatest wish for you, too, dear one - to come alive. To feel it all: sadness, pain, love, joy, ecstasy.

Because life is beautiful.

And sometimes ugly.

And bitter.

And sometimes sweet.

But for what it's worth, we're here.

For some unfathomable reason, we are alive. We're living, breathing, crying, laughing, stumbling, and picking ourselves back up again. (If we're lucky, maybe we're even kissing.)

This is life, you know?

And maybe one of these days we'll wake up and fully realize, within every cell of our being, how incredibly lucky we are that we get to experience it all.

[jbox title="About the author:" border="5" radius="15"]Therese Schwenkler is the Founder, CEO, and “Marketer of Truth" at TheUnlost.com, where she provides non-sucky advice on work, love, and what to do when life sucks. Click here to read Therese’s most popular articles about finding your way from crappiness... to happiness

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Gratitude Is Magic

About a year ago I was stuck. Full of anger, jealousy, comparison, a feeling of lack in my life. I was focused on this feeling of not having resources to do what I felt made me happy. I was unhappy with the community I lived in, and felt stuck. I was jealous of my friends I saw in my Instagram and Facebook feed. It seemed they were all traveling all over the world and working on such cool and meaningful projects. I was frustrated I didn’t know what my purpose in this world was. What was I put here to do? Can you relate to any/all of these things? It hit me one morning I had created habits of negativity. Each new negative habit I had created for myself led to even more negative habits. It was a vicious cycle and I realized I needed to replace my negative habits with positive ones. In came gratitude...

It was here that I stumbled upon a book called One Thousand Gifts: A Dare to Live Fully Right Where You Are, by Ann Voskamp. She used a gratitude list to help pull her out of a deep depression. She just kept notebooks all over the place and literally filled them with all the things she was grateful for. I wanted to try this out, but I realized very quickly my list was filled with people I’d shared experiences with throughout my life, or folks who’ve impacted me in some way.

So, I started writing one gratitude letter a day to a friend, family member or kind soul who’s loved me when I needed it most. Notes filled with all the things I love about the people in my life. Lists of things I love about them, why they’re so awesome and how they’re impacting the world.

Ponder this for a second. How many times do you think something rad about someone in your life? I’ll bet a lot. How many times do you then tell that special someone the radness you thought about them? I’ll bet not a lot.

And, here’s the deal. Gratitude is magic. My very unscientific description of the whole gratitude process:

1. A positive message travels along a nerve in the brain and reaches the end of the nerve, it releases chemicals that are then picked up by the next nerve allowing the message to be carried on.
2. These chemicals, or neurotransmitters, have a calming effect on the brain by increasing levels of other chemicals such as serotonin, which produces calm and peaceful feelings.
3. The more genuinely positive messages that are sent, the more neurochemicals are released and received allowing for peace and contentment and happiness.

I’ve found since I started my gratitude letter writing practice I’m less aggressive, happier, more optimistic, I sleep better and I have a better control on dealing with stress. I’ve found more JOY in the little things and an appreciation for life that was missing before. Gratitude changes everything.

Want to get started on writing gratitude letters to those you love in your life? I have a 14 day Spread Joy Letter Writing Challenge filled with tips on how to get you started and prompts on what to say if you’re feeling stuck. All the details can be found at Josh Solar Loves You.

Join Josh in a movement to fill the world with gratitude and appreciation! Write a letter of gratitude right now! Tell us about your experience in the comments.

[jbox title="About the author:" border="5" radius="15"] Josh Solar is a giver of love, creator of art, and an influence for good in the world. If you love love, you will love his blog, Josh Solar Loves You, and keeping up with his amazing family at The Happy Family Movement. I highly recommend you check out his podcast episode on The Loveumentary as well.

Want to get the 30 Day Gratitude Challenge sent to your email inbox every day? Fill out this little form here:

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