When things are going our way, it's easy to find the things to be grateful for. But when things aren't great, when maybe finances are tight, there's grief, loss. What we can do is take an opportunity to find enoughness exactly where we are right now.
Good morning, Cadre family coming to you live this Saturday morning again with some mindfulness mornings to get your weekend started today. You know, as I was looking ahead to this live stream, thinking about all the ways in which stress, anxiety, frustration, disappointment, these things can, can build up inside of us. And often they kind of double down when we have a hard time accepting where we are as we are right now. And you know, that idea, accepting where we are as we are right now, sounds great.
Especially when things are going well. When things are going our way, it's easy to find the things to be grateful for. But that task, that perspective is a little bit harder to come by. When things aren't great, when maybe finances are tight, there's change that's unexpected, there's grief, loss. And often our place of disappointment, loathing comes from this idea of supposed to be. This is supposed to be something other than what it is. Our mind is excellent at giving us all the ways in which things could, should, would have been different.
And there's a time and a place that's an important way for our mind to think and grow. But also when it comes to accepting, when it comes to finding some peace in our day, that thought, that idea, that imagination can take more away from it than it gives to us. And so rather, what we can do is take an opportunity to find enoughness exactly where we are right now. And so the first thing we have to do is look around and think about what are those points that tell us here and now is not good enough?
Often that brings us one of two places, either to the future. Well, I've got a bill due on Friday, and right now my bank account doesn't have enough money in it to pay that bill. And I have a bill due in an hour. My bank account doesn't have enough money to pay that bill. And that means that's going to happen. And that's going to happen, and that's going to happen. It's totally out of my control. And we start to spiral. Or maybe we look around and say, man, the journey that I see that took me here, not where I imagined I would be at this point in my life, isn't one I'm super proud of.
We look back and we measure and think and bring our minds attention fully to all these things that are no longer existing. And so, rather than fully being pulled to the future, fully being pulled to the past, fully being pulled to these things that truly do not exist right here and now. And so this is where we find enoughness. And enoughness we may have a high threshold for, based on this future or past, that we've experienced a high threshold meaning, well, it's only enough if I have this much money.
It's only enough if these people are still in my life. It's only enough if my health is this way. And so, for the purpose of finding some peace this morning, let's lower that threshold and say, enoughness can be found in the most simple, difficult, most taken for granted things in our life. And this is the basis for gratitude. A gratitude that goes beyond just acknowledging things that we can very easily be thankful for. Maybe a nice house or a car, but rather gratitude for my breath, the oxygen that seeps into my lungs, that keeps me alive today.
Gratitude for the fact that we live on an earth perfectly positioned from the sun, that provides the opportunity for life. Gratitude that I have the capacity for feeling joy even if I don't feel it right now. And if I don't feel joy, I'm feeling the other half that's necessary for joy to exist. Gratitude for the fact that beauty exists in this world, that ugliness becomes the necessity for knowing what is beautiful, that the dark shades of life contribute equally to the light. Gratitude for my existence as spiritual, or woo woo, as that may sound in a very literal, practical sense.
Gratitude for the sake that I can exist here and now. And that here and now is where action can happen, where I can make a difference, where I can encounter my problems and respond in a new way, where because I exist, the future is undetermined and my life is flexible. The power of our perspective of life being enough, makes those big, scary monsters of anxiety and fear, or loathing and sadness become a little bit smaller. It doesn't make them disappear. It's part of being human. But we recognize it as all being an equal part of our lives, equally important and necessary.
We can have gratitude for it all. Thank you for joining me this morning. If you're tuning in, I hope you have an excellent week ahead and enjoy this weekend. And I encourage you to go back to when you notice. Things are hard, emotions are high, thoughts are scary. Gratitude not for what's easy, but for what's difficult, what's taken for granted. Have a good weekend. Bye.
