We finally made it to a cafe in Seattle today with our friend, Sanju. It was a nice little cafe. We hung out there for a while. A 21-month-old boy came in with his papa and we tried to make friends with the boy. I asked Johari if she wanted to share her tangerine with the little boy, Leo. Her very first response was a shake of the head "no". But with a small bit of encouragement she got really into giving him the oranges slice by slice. Leo was into receiving them. Then she wanted to give him her pear after she took a couple of bites. She really likes to give other people food. She is constantly trying to pass her food off to anyone around. Let's hope this spirit of sharing can persevere.
I was looking at a book that was recommended to me today online. I read a bit about its premise. It was talking about teaching younger or older children to use affirmations throughout their daily life. For some reason, it made me think of something that I have heard about before and done at various times on my own in my journal and tried to encourage other people to do as well. And that is think about 5 things that you are grateful or thankful for or happy about. I have found that when I do this on a regular basis (daily or at least trying to make it daily) it has made me more mindful of all of the small wonderful things that happen in my day. It has allowed me to hone in on the little delights as well as the bigger ones. So I thought that maybe we should try to do this at the dinner table every night as a family. And I suggested it. It seems like everyone agreed that it was a good idea. We have begun. (I had to make a ground rule...no response necessary after each thing that people are thankful for.) The things that I was thankful for today...
- Being able to spend time in the city at a nice cafe with a friend.
- Running around the house with Johari for exercise and great fun.
- Drinking green tea.
- Having a great dinner with green vegetables in it - a pile of broccoli.
- Watching Johari share her fruit with a little boy in the cafe.
So I challenge you to do the same for a while. Consistently for a couple of weeks to try it out. It can be whatever you want. The same thing every day. Different things. Little things. Big things. Medium things. 2 things. 20 things. I feel like it is a good practice for everyone. We have so much to gripe about and fret over and challenge us, it is good to take a moment out of a day to just be grateful for things. I was thinking, why 5. Does it have to be 5? What if you have a super horrible day and you are allowing yourself to feel like crap? Do you have to come up with 5 things...I don't think so, but maybe 5 should be something we could strive for. A minimum of 2, right? I mean even if we are really down and out there has to still be the energy to drudge up 2 things that you appreciate in one's life or in one's day. But then maybe we are so inspired by life that we just don't want to stop appreciating the things that we see around us. Let me know how it goes.
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