Thanksgiving – Gratitude
Rainy Days
I have made a habit of daily writing for years. Sometimes I journal the day’s events and thoughts, other times I do a “brain dump” of everything that I am thinking about or fretting about, sometimes I write positive affirmations over and over, and sometimes I make a list of things I am grateful for. Yesterday I was running errands in the pouring rain, thinking how much I’d rather be somewhere where it wouldn’t be raining for the next three or four months.
Gratitude
Now I know that is not a good example of positive thinking or of gratitude so when I got home I put myself to work on improving my thoughts.
First I got all the reasons I do not like rainy winters out on paper, wet, running shoes, wet dogs, wet mail in the mailbox, needing to wear Gore-tex all the time, my glasses getting all spotted up, feeling sad for everyone who is leaking or flooding, etc. Then once I got all that out of my system, I naturally started thinking about what I enjoy about rain, the sound of it and the smell of it, how good it feels knowing that the trees and plants are getting both fed and washed, grateful for my mini trampoline that I have so I can still get my 10,000 steps inside, and especially grateful for how incredible the Northwest looks during those sun-breaks when the raindrops glisten on the evergreens and the air looks so crystal clear after being cleansed of all particulates. Which somehow brought me round to humming “I’m just a little black rain cloud” from Winnie the Pooh, don’t ask me how that happened. 🙂
Inga Duncan Thornell 