Gratitude and saying thank you feels really good.  It seems to even out the rough spots.  You get to breathe more easily when you can say thank you. While preparing for a talk with a church last year, I ran across an article about the most powerful prayer.  The prayer was simply say “thank you”.  The premise of the article and writer was that if you can speak thank you easily it is a prayer.  And when you can’t speak thank you easily, it opens you up so you can be grateful no matter your circumstances. 2013 has had lots of spots that required the use of thank you.  There were many opportunities to be grateful and many times when the only thing that was going to shift a difficult situation was to be grateful. Stress and anger go hand in hand.  Being grateful when it is hard…no impossible, eases the anger.  Even in the most difficult of situations, a deep breath and gratitude – thank you – opens the door a crack to ease and less stress. Sometimes we actually do not think there is anything to be grateful for…we are lost, angry, out of sorts, broke, hurt and precariously close to not being safe.  Our circumstance stink.  We have run out of time and patience.  There is no clear thinking and everyone and everything is making us tense. Even then, thank you can begin to shift you from lost to found.  Sad to happy.  Angry to grateful.  Let me provide some examples:

• Thank you for my breath
• Thank you for my hands
• Thank you for the cup I have to put my coffee in
• Thank you for my feet that get me to where I need to go
• Thank you for my car
• Thank you for my phone
• Thank you for my heart beating without my help
• Thank you for being grateful in the midst of being so very angry
• Thank you for me who is reading this and trying this ridiculous thank you thing
• Thank you for my puppy who loves me even when I am not lovable
• Thank you for my laptop, device, notebook, phone, fax machine, scanner, voicemail
• Thank you for coffee
• Thank you for everything I learned this year
• Thank you for my performance review that told me I was good at what I do – the money could have been higher!
• Thank you for my sister who called me to tell me she loves me anyway
• Thank you electricity
• Thank you for my neighbor who told me about the condo meeting cause I had forgotten
• Thank you for the kid that bags my groceries
• Thank you for hot bread; cold beer; warm socks
• Thank you

So I think you get this.

Thank you for being a part of my life this year and for reading my blog and for sending me terrific notes about being inspired and for sharing your stories and for trusting me.

Thank you yourself into happy and graceful gratitude. Blessings and love to you always,