Be the best imperfect person you can be!
The gratitude thing, I love it but not everybody does, I’ve even had myself a diary printed this year that includes a place for me to write down 3 things each day that I’m grateful for, I find that doing it on a daily basis makes me realise how truly good my life is. I do realise that a lot of people find it particularly difficult though, some find themselves writing the same three things everyday or just not being able to think of anything usually because they’re thinking too hard, trying to think of ‘big’ things rather than the little lovely things that make our lives wonderful, the news yesterday about the Irish families that haven’t had water for 8 days made me grateful for my taps and my flusher on the toilet – see it’s the little things we take for granted.
So if you find it difficult to think of things every day, I came across another great idea this week when I downloaded an app for my phone which was called ‘live happy’ and the one bit of it is called a ‘Savouring Album’, in which you take a picture of the moment and keep it. The album allows you to take a picture of something of beauty you encounter, and write a short text description of what you found to be beautiful about it. We all know the expression “stop and smell the roses.” The Savouring Album is a great way to stop and take a good look at things that we admire and appreciate. Use the camera on your phone not to document, but to help you truly look at things and help you experience their beauty.
Again this might seem a bit difficult or pointless for some of you which led me to thinking about another way of realising what a fabulous life you have and what wonderful times you’ve had. It doesn’t have to be on a daily basis, or a weekly basis but it could just be any time that you feel the need, so you’re not on a timetable or doing something because you think you should, you’re doing it because you want to. So here’s my idea, whenever you’re feeling a bit off or even if you’re feeling fab, find out a photo from one of your albums or take a new photo of something and have a really good look at it and then write how that photo makes you feel, what was good about the time when it was taken, why did that experience or the person or thing in that photo make you feel good and make your life worth living! It need only take a few minutes and what you write doesn’t have to be clever or witty it just needs to be honest. So an example would be a photo I took of Alfie snoozing on boxing day, and about it I wrote, “He’s content and safe and that’s because he trusts me. We are best friends and he loves me. I love how he’s snoring because that means he’s truly relaxed and asleep. Even when he’s being annoying, I love him. Even though he woke me up 5 minutes before I took this, I love him! Even when I don’t have time, I’ll take him for a walk. He’s my little doodle.”
I know this has nothing to do with dieting but hey we’ve got next year to look at that and to be honest, the more content you are in your life and the happier you are being the true you the easier it is to take care of your diet and health.
You could even do a similar thing with your diet, get a notepad and when you eat write a few sentences about what you’ve eaten and why you ate it. Was it because you were hungry, did you enjoy it, would you have chosen it had you not been watching your weight. We all love to eat but have we ever asked ourselves or bothered to identify why it is that we love to eat? Mmm interesting idea. Do you actually stop to truly taste your food, does it matter what your food looks like or are you just interested in the taste? Do you care how its made or where it comes from.
Yep today I shall mostly be asking myself, “why did I eat that and was it good?”
Enjoy the last day of 2010 and look forward to 2011.
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