Marion Elizabeth
An assortment of monthly articles
written about
wellness, responsibility,
fitness, and the seasons
March 2018 Healthy Living: National Nutrition Month With National Nutrition Month beginning two months after the new year, its placement further reiterates a healthy eating plan, especially if you feel you're falling off the resolution bandwagon. Supporting a diet plentiful in fresh foods balanced to fit your lifestyle is integral to healthy eating. In 1973, benefits of proper nutrition were presented to the public in a week-long event aimed to raise awareness by adapting your diet to be a better balance of nutritious foods. As the quest for more knowledge on nutrition and being healthier gained in popularity, so did that original event week, as it expanded to an entire month of attention. The focus and original intent of National Nutrition Month was, “To increase the public’s awareness of the importance of good nutrition and position American Dietetic Association (ADA) members as the authorities in nutrition.” Besides knowing that eating healthier equals a healthier body, better nutrition is the best lifestyle choice to not only maintain good health, but also prevent all sorts of malfunctions the body may be subject to, if care isn't put into what you put in your body. In order to continue honing your nutrition skills, it's ideal to be active in your choices, especially if you are purchasing a processed food, take a good look at the label. As the world shrinks from boundaries, exposure to new and different foods will serve up something different in the upcoming year. Keeping your gastrointestinal health on the up and up with prebiotics and probiotics will enhance the growth of bacteria in your gut and aid in digestion, immunity and overall health. Combining research, new foods and the inclusion of foods for your GI tract, you should be well on your way to a successful nutrition month, and continued success for the year. Reading labels of any packaged food has probably become more of a habit by now, with various food allergies or preferences. Severe nut allergic folks must scour the label to note whether or not this product was created in a facility where nuts are processed. Vegetarians skim through the ingredients to ensure certain additions aren't derived from an animal bi-product that renders the product non-vegetarian. The real focus for anyone should be to read the actual serving size and daily values of nutrients provided in the serving size, and then stick to it. Whether or not you are looking to lose pounds, cutting back on the saturated fat, trans fat, cholesterol, added sugars and sodium is just as important. When considering these ingredients, look for foods with 5 percent or less, and you will be setting yourself up to reduce your chances for chronic diseases, like heart disease and high blood pressure. On the other hand, some packaged foods are high in vitamins, minerals and fiber, all which are important to reach daily values of 20 percent or more. Plumping up your daily values of fiber, potassium, vitamin D, calcium and iron will aid your reduction of osteoporosis and anemia. The Nutrition Facts label also has additional ingredients that are part of a balanced diet, which includes protein, carbohydrates, and sugars. Sugars are suggested to be limited to no more than 10 percent of your daily calories. As you read the ingredient list, it might be helpful to know that ingredients are listed by their weight, not by the most plentiful ingredient. The past year brought cauliflower to the spotlight as it was fashioned to replace rice, pizza crust, bagels and even “tater” tots, so what can you look forward to in your local food aisle this year? Figs have begun infiltrating stores, and have the increasing spotlight as a replacement for added sugar in recipes, adding a natural sugar instead, and lowers the daily recommended dose of added sugar. Keep an eye out for figs in the produce section, and celebrate their sweetness with the additional bonus of being rich in iron and fiber, with a dash of calcium. While you're in the produce aisle, look around for a very knobby, green and rather odd-looking fruit. The jackfruit is being marketed as a meat replacement for vegans, because its mild taste will absorb spices it's cooked in, and its texture is being compared to that of pulled pork. In fact, a recipe to turn the jackfruit into a vegan pulled pork dish seems to be the most prominent use, and it increases potassium, magnesium, calcium, B6, and fiber levels. Ingredients for “Pulled Pork” Jackfruit 1 tablespoon olive oil 1 shallot, minced 1 cup ketchup 1 tablespoon honey 1 tablespoon apple cider vinegar 1/2 teaspoon sweet paprika 1 tablespoon Worcestershire sauce 1 teaspoon chili powder One 10.6-ounce package plain jackfruit, rinsed and drained (such as Upton’s Naturals), and broken up with a spatula 4 hamburger buns Preparation 1. In a large skillet, heat the oil over medium-high heat. Add the shallot and sauté for 3 minutes, until softened. 2. Reduce heat to low and add the ketchup, honey, vinegar, paprika, Worcestershire sauce and chili powder. Stir for 3 minutes until well combined. Add the jackfruit and heat through for 5 minutes. 3. Transfer a quarter of the jackfruit to each of the buns. Serve while hot. Frances Largeman-Roth, RD Eating for your health is more than how something tastes, case in point – choosing foods that will keep things running smoothly in your insides while digesting what you have eaten. Your body is a machine, and there are better choices that maintain open passageways and clean filtration for maximum efficiency. The incorporation of prebiotics and probiotics in your food consumption is more cost effective than relying on prescriptions to combat health issues later. Most likely you have heard of probiotics, the live cultures typically found in dairy products, kefir and aged cheeses. These live cultures are the bacteria in your gut that balances your GI health and can boost immunity, prevent allergy symptoms, and improve overall health. Other sources of probiotics include fermented foods like: sauerkraut, kimchi, non-dairy yogurts, miso and tempeh. On the other hand, prebiotics are important to improve gut health, as the bacteria feeds the already present bacteria, and their efforts aid the body in calcium absorption. Recommended foods to eat for healthy prebiotics are bananas, onions, leeks, garlic, asparagus, artichokes, soybeans and whole-wheat foods. Although food has a tendency to be that “go to” for substituting emotional happiness, you ingest things appealing because of taste or ease of preparation. National Nutrition Month, seeks to aid you in consuming foods to help prevent long-term health issues. Play your cards right, and you can eat for your health by reading package serving sizes and recommended daily nutrition values. Just because packaged food is easy for on-the-go eating, doesn't mean it's conducive to healthy consumption. Keep an open mind when it comes to new foods on the market; they might satisfy a lack in your nutrition. There is a lot to learn about maintaining or improving health, and your gut should be given credit, too, as it's responsible for more than digestion. No matter what you choose to improve, your health is what matters, so eat for your health.
June 2016 Healthy Living – Laugh It Up, It really is the best medicine The best medicine does not come from a pill, liquid or poultice made of smelly herbs. You don't need a prescription, nor do you have to covertly meet with someone in a dark alley (by the way, who ever thinks that sounds like a good idea?). None of these things are the body's natural defense to pain, infection, depression or stress, which is also free, yet priceless. The answer is—laughter is the best medicine, and it fits every, single body, no deleterious side effects to consider before engaging. In fact, laughing can happen anywhere, anytime, and costs nothing. LOL, or laugh out loud is the most popular acronym used in texting activity, so it's probably safe to say that we as a society subscribe to our best reachable medicine, we just don't realize all the beneficial effects, even if the laughter is forced. No doubt at all that laughter is good for what ails you. We've all been in a situation where the obligation to remain still and quiet has completely been overtaken by the need to snort, laugh and clutch our bellies, whether it be in a meeting, church, filming on a set, or around the family dinner table. Sometimes the urge to laugh is such that it overcomes us naturally, and there is no escaping, so you have to let it out. Once the outburst has been released, more will follow from those around you. It can't be stifled, because much like chicken pox, which is not funny in the least, it is, however, contagious. Even a look across the dinner table to your sister desperately biting the inside of her cheeks to keep quiet while Dad is delivering his take on the idiocy of the presidential debates can start riotous laughter amongst all family members present. And, no, the presidential debates certainly aren't meant to be that entertaining, nor are your Dad's very real concerns he is voicing about it, however sneaking several bites of the tough liver your mom served to your willing pup underneath the table is hilarious. Probably not to your mom, but once she sees the two of you barely holding it together, she has no choice but to join in the laughter too, and pretty soon the whole family is yukking it up together even if they don't know why. The why is never important, it's the laughing that keeps people together. The people you hang out the most with should have a sense of humor, for this will ultimately increase your sense of well-being. Sitting on a crowded plane bound for one of the most popular tourist destinations can be a very unnerving situation, from stuffing you and your carry-on of essentials in an invisible four-sided kennel, marked by the seat in front of you, the seat you're in, and hopefully an armrest or two, to the notion that you have nowhere to go during the duration of the flight. To top it off, you have also secured yourself to this spot with the lap belt pulled snuggly across your mid-section, further shackling yourself to the spot. Looking around, there are families and crying children, and no way can you feel comfortable sitting like this for hours on end while you reach your destination. Well, in preparation for the journey, you packed a book that you related so much to, it elicits laugh out loud scenarios. You can't help but crack up as you bury your nose in the pages. Those poor souls who share immediate space with you may be stuck with the airline's seat pocket magazine, but they may at least get a smile across their face from hearing your sporadic cracking up. Either way, the benefit from your laughing is that the increased blood flow and resultant oxygenation from laughing highly benefits your cramped body. Endorphins that are released help you feel more relaxed in your invisible kennel, and you will be landing sooner than you think. The other consideration while traveling in your flying Greyhound bus is all the recycled germs floating around from a plethora of sources. There is no escaping the germs from the dude hacking up a lung next to you that seems to have a wicked sinus infection, nor the toddler who is touching everything as he meanders down the aisle, with rivulets of gooey snot running down his face. The cabin is pressurized and that means no one is avoiding exposure to these rampant germs. Keep that laughing up, and you have supplemental immune therapy to the extra vitamin C you loaded up on in the couple of days prior to flying. Laughing can increase the release of immuno-enhancers like beta-endorphins. Not only that, but keep reading that gut-wrenching kneeslapper of a book, and you will decrease glucocorticoids, which if allowed to elevate, will suppress NK (natural killer) cell activity. We want the NK cells to be active, so keep them on that laughing treadmill, and prevent vacation and post vacation related germs. Success is measured in prosperity, acclamation, and personal achievement. The path to success can be a long road, unless you remember you're human, and you practice being resilient. Being human means not being perfect, realizing you will have failures that will cause some detours through your accomplishments, and recognizing it is important to take steps to laugh at your mistakes. Success will be a much smoother harbor to moor, when laughter is included along the way. Giving yourself constant grief about mistakes is not productive, physically or emotionally, so instead, analyze what went wrong and then laugh about it when you realize your mistake and how to prevent it in the future. Thank yourself for being responsible enough to be able to make a ten-thousand dollar investment that virtually went unnoticed in how you live your financial life. Yes, it certainly hurts to lose a dollar amount of that size, but knowing and being aware that not having it doesn't impact you, whatsoever, is something to congratulate yourself on. Laugh at the fact that you took a chance, you lived to tell about it, yet your lifestyle never faltered because of the mistake. If you dwell on the things that brought you down, it only serves to keep you down. Practice resilience, and laugh it off; this will help you bounce back right on track to the path of success. Say you chose to go completely on the opposite train of thought, and instead have chosen to wallow in the loss of that huge chunk of change. The more you beat yourself up inside, berating yourself, “I can't believe I was so stupid as to believe I could increase my financial potential with this ridiculous investment. How could I have been so blind?”, the further down the spiral of depression you will spin. As internal dialogue such as this is permitted to continuously play in your head, the quicker you will find yourself in a world of deep depression, and the sooner you need to find a way to look outside the box of reality and see that your current situation is not forever. Do not be a victim to this spinning wheel of death that is depression, and instead see the situation for what it was, and move on. You made an investment with money you had, yet didn't need currently, and it didn't return what it was supposed to, “oh well, lesson learned.” Most mistakes are life lessons, and without them, you don't move forward, but for goodness sakes, don't let the lesson become a concrete boot to drown yourself. Move on! Pull up your big panties and pull out a comedy. Adam Sandler movies are always good for a laugh. Sandler delivers a good debate over whether shampoo or conditioner is the more liked hair product, plus all that laughing will serve to release dopamine (controls the brain's reward and pleasure center), neuropeptides (neuronal signaling molecules), and other hormones that fight depression. While laughing is a good distraction from reality, one of the hardest things to deal with is physical pain. It alters our mood incredibly because of the attention it demands throughout the entire day. You're quick to snap at anyone who remotely looks at you sideways, or even worse drinks the last Coke in the fridge that would have helped an excruciating migraine. “Don't you know I need the Coke right now, and you took the LAST one?” Pain is very real, and your tolerance goes only so far. Or does it? While pain can severely alter your personality while its black cloud drifts over your well-being, comedy does serve to distract you long enough to plant the seed of tolerance, perhaps just a tad higher than you were able to deal with prior. Laughing doesn't lessen the pain, but the break is long enough that you realize you are strong enough to cope with the waging war within your body that is causing the intolerable sensations. Laughing decreases tension because it involves other parts of the body, and when combined with hormones released from laughing, energies are redirected elsewhere. The pain factor is not necessarily reduced, but your perception of what you can manage raises your threshold. Keep the laughs coming and pretty soon your threshold could sustain your migraine during a marathon. Just kidding--or maybe not. It is your life to lead, you ultimately have the last word, but adding humor will make the ride a lot more fun. You make decisions based upon what is at hand, your resources, and what you deem as necessary for the moment, so find a way to keep the laughs coming. Not all moments are perfect, but they all lead to the perfect moment eventually, what better way to do it than to slide into success laughing your head off? When you reach a point that needs some enhancement, fire up the Netflix, and hit the comedy selection—hard! The more you laugh while watching a movie, reading a book, or being around friends who are easy to be around and you can laugh with, the more you improve everything about your moment. Life is comedic, especially when you step back and see it from outside the box. Shed light upon a dim subject, and force a few laughs out. It's ok, the more you smile and keep a chipper approach, the more smiles you are greeted with, and the better it all turns out.
January 2018 Healthy Living: Feng Shui to Inspire a New Year of Fulfillment Do you ever open up a drawer and see something that needs to be relocated to a place that would be more suitable to its use? For instance, seeing in your sock drawer a jack splitter for a phone, more commonly known today as a family plan, inhabits space where it doesn't belong, and maintains energy of the past. There was a time if you wanted an extension in your room, or an extraneous room that did not have it's own phone line outlet, you could use a splitter and purchase a really long phone cord that would reach your room, so you could have private conversations with the door closed. The point is, no one needs a splitter in their drawer any longer. At this point, you doubt you'll need it anytime soon, so it would better be suited to join other doodads of the electrical nature, at least they'll all be in the same general location. Wouldn't it be great if anything you went looking for was with other objects of like nature, and there were no “items that don't belong”? Imagine the ease of finding anything. You learned this concept in kindergarten, but have gotten lazy and now stick things anywhere to get out it of the way, yet are placing them somewhere that doesn't make sense because after a time you won't “see” the screwdriver amongst the silverware drawer, thus forgetting it's there. One of the concepts of feng shui (fung sh-way) is that everything should be in its place, which translates into a space of free-flowing energy. The idea of harmonizing your space as far as things are placed, directly and indirectly affects other aspects of your life. Approach the New Year with a different mindset, and consider it a deep cleaning and a rebalancing to set yourself up for success in health, life and home for the coming year. Traditionally you think of the new year as January 1st, but the Chinese New Year is celebrated in February with this coming year falling on the 16th, which gives you a little over a month to set yourself up for a new year full of prosperity by following a few feng shui tips that won't be as hard as your promise to commit yourself to 5 am workouts Monday-Friday, no excuses. You know there will be excuses, and you won't make it, and the ball continues to roll downhill, until you barely go once a week. The art of feng shui focuses on harmonizing your space, in order to facilitate positive energy flow, and although you can't see the energy, you invite in benefits of free-flowing energy through energy rearrangement. In the days leading up to the new year, clean every inch of your home. Aside from ridding your home of dirt, dust and debris that find hiding places under and behind things that haven't moved in the last few months to a year, the act of moving things around frees up the energy that has been stagnant, and full of the past year. Cleaning it puts a fresh spin on your entire environment; infuse new energy by freshening up the yard, even if that means a quick rake up, to further the harmonization of your dwelling. Clutter and unfinished business are the blocks that manifest in wasted time, misdirection, and a weight that sits heavy on your motivation lever. This intangible energy may not be something you even notice to have a direct effect upon anything specific, but everything is connected to everything around you, whether you notice or not. Welcome a more conducive flow of energy as you compile a list of repairs around your house that need to be addressed, and vow to repair them before the new year. When an object no longer fulfills its function in your space, the energy around it, albeit inanimate, becomes blocked or stagnant, and prohibits the diffusion of energy. Consider the leaky toilet in the guest bathroom which needs a new mechanism inside the water closet. Instead of fixing it right off, you turned off the water that fills the tank, and walked away from it, sending any visitors to your personal bathroom rather than repairing the toilet. This exemplifies blocked energy, as the area no longer functions as it is meant to, and the space is instead, is a drain of energy. Each time you have to direct your friends to use your bathroom, you are aggravated that a part of your home doesn't serve its purpose. Address stacks of clothes, magazines and junk mail that you have set aside to go through and put away later; donate or put them away before the new year, and free yourself from the burden they manifest as they take up space. Now, if you have cleansed your home and soul of things that no longer serve you, the next order of business to promote prosperity and fulfillment for the upcoming year, includes an array of simple, yet fun tasks to usher in a new year of renewed energy. To initiate personal growth and change, infuse the power of the number 27 throughout your life and space. Move twenty-seven items around your home, as you do so, identify twenty-seven personal changes you would like to see fulfilled in the coming year. The number 9 signifies fullness and transformation of heaven and earth, so place nine oranges, the symbol for prosperity because of their resemblance to the sun, in the kitchen, considered to be the area related to wealth and abundance.
July 2018 Healthy Living: What is your responsibility; can you improve upon it? The more our population advances and grows, it's not only fashionable to initiate some energy-saving, water-reducing, and environmentally sound choices into your day-to-day living, but imperative to make choices for the future. As your living style grows more valuable to you, it's necessary to further support the desires you have for cleaner air, better water quality, and less waste produced, in order to expedite improvement, however, it's crucial that you make changes in your personal decisions, and those may not be simple, but in time will become a habit. The personal decisions will include altering how you conduct your life now, to further substantiate your beliefs. Resolutions to your lifestyle might not be the most convenient, nor trend-setting, but hey, you started taking reusable grocery bags to the store, in order to yield less use of plastic, and that has finally taken off. Change is a constant, and the ebb and flow of life with its developments require not only flexibility, but evaluation of what is considered to be progress to consider if it supports what you regard as beneficial to healthy living. You need only take notice of any construction along your daily commute or while out running errands, to note the growth in population and the need for goods and services to provide each of those individuals their own resource, whether it be a car, or a place to buy groceries. Humanity is far from the time when resources were either present, or they weren't, because we partook of what was native, and now we have everything shipped from all over the world so we don't miss out on anything. What used to be distinctly inherent to an area, now has been made accessible worldwide. Amongst the implications this carries with the enjoyment of having available, imported tea or fine automobiles from Germany, is all of the expenses incurred to package and ship said items to your locale. Packaging for bagged salads, or cases of engine oil has to be produced somewhere so that you can conveniently pick up groceries, or refined oil for your car. Noting that it takes energy to package up the items you've become accustomed to, and for better or worse, it certainly is convenient, and delicious when Altaulfo (honey) mangos are available a half a mile away. How do you handle this duplicity of wanting to reduce the energy consumption required to have the sweet fruit available versus enjoying the tasty, juicy newly re-named, Honey mango across your lips? Having an awareness of what it takes to make sure the fruit arrives in the produce aisle looking fresh and edible is essential to you diligently advocating for environmentally friendly practices, to ensure a quality fruit. These practices begin with the life of the mango using an organic growing process, to its biodegradable packaging, and eventually a pollutant-free journey to your store as we refine and improve upon what we use for fuel. Ensuring you endorse these practices translates to you being in the know, and doing your research as far as your store's operating procedures. The more advocates onboard, the better opportunities to reduce the detriment caused by shipping out of the growing area. Trash is anything anyone decides at any given moment that the item in hand has become undesirable and must be tossed away from their immediate person. No matter what the item is that becomes trash, there is a better choice for how to get rid of batteries that can leach poisonous chemicals into the ground water, or the boxy television set that was in the guest room. Proper searches to dispose of used items that no longer serve your purpose opens up such a wealth of recyclability. Be conscious of where you are throwing things away. Great that you have at least been responsible enough to put the item in a bin of some sort, but consider what happens after the contents of the receptacle is collected. Having an awareness of what it takes to make sure the fruit arrives in the produce aisle looking fresh and edible is essential to you diligently advocating for environmentally friendly practices, to ensure a quality fruit. These practices begin with the life of the mango using an organic growing process, to its biodegradable packaging, and eventually a pollutant-free journey to your store as we refine and improve upon what we use for fuel. Ensuring you endorse these practices translates to you being in the know, and doing your research as far as your store's operating procedures. The more advocates onboard, the better opportunities to reduce the detriment caused by shipping out of the growing area. How much land should be filled with the undesirable things you get rid of? Some of the items that were once considered luxury because of their ease of disposability, and convenience, like diapers, are now affordably volume produced for the mass consumption by babies in the first two and a half years of life. This ultimately translates into 715 pounds of plastic, 4 ½ trees and the use of a half a pint of crude oil per diaper to produce the waterproof liner. Averaging a little over four diapers used in a day equates to 3,796 diapers per child filling up the landfill. “Plastics don't biodegrade like organic matter, which means they can't be converted by living organisms into useful compounds for life. Instead, they photo-degrade, a process by which photons from the sun's rays pulverize the plastic polymers until they are broken into individual molecules." (Popular Science) Having knowledge of this staggering fact, we must weigh this factor in to our life of convenience, and where it will eventually lead us in the future. Humans are constantly evolving with technological advances, and unfortunately awareness of the implications of our conveniences surface daily. With convenience, portability and ease of purchases involving the throw away society has resulted in insurmountable amounts of trash. Merely throwing it away is no longer the paltry responsibility of keeping the earth free from litter, instead it is critical to our very health. According to NBC.com, what is known as the “Great Pacific Garbage Patch”, floats 79,000 tons of plastic debris and is three times the size of France. We have infiltrated the oceanic ecosystem with our waste, as this affects our water and food supply, as fish inadvertently consume the plastic particles. On a local level, your individual responsibility in using chemicals or cleaners is to ensure nothing enters our direct drinking aquifer by way of runoff. Having knowledge of properly disposing household garbage so that items like batteries and electronic items are prevented from being tossed into the landfill and leaching chemicals into our water. While there are better choices to create energy and produce material things, humans take such a time to make it happen due to ignorance, or that the money being made from current technology is too great to give up. Either way, there are consequences to the actions we make, so start with you and make changes that you can live with. Don't be so naïve that once the plastic fork you used is put in its proper receptacle at the end of your need, then you no longer think about it. Consider the bigger picture that includes a disposable fork's journey from creation to the landfill, and the price paid for the use of it. Find ways to extend your responsibility to reducing the reliance on plastic, eventually eliminate waste and where to recycle things. Everything you use costs something, decide the price you're willing to incur, take your own silverware, use the same plastic fork at the theme park if you must, and take steps to avoid plastic bags. Advances are being made in recycling and environmentally friendly products; advocate for these changes, and take a stand towards a future you are proud of and more importantly, a cleaner present.
October 2016 Healthy Living: Thanks be to Gratitude for a Content Life October ushers in the season of holidays, gatherings, gifts and decorations, and while the last couple months of the year hold a plethora of fun and exciting times with friends and family, we should focus on gratitude, after all, November holds Thanksgiving. While our tradition grew out of our ancestors' first winters in the New World, the holiday has evolved with the spirit of our changing society. Everyone gets involved in cooking all day to create a feast to be shared with family and friends, and considering our society is a 24/7 operation, it is an amazing feat to get so many people gathered in the same state, let alone under one roof for a common meal. Some families may go around the room and share what they are grateful for, others may have a member lead the gathering in prayer, and others dig in carelessly, like it's any other meal in the year. Using Thanksgiving as a kick-off to not only living a more thankful life day-to-day, but also a renewal to practicing gratitude on a more consistent basis throughout the whole year. The more we become aware of things we are thankful to have, the more we draw and focus our attention on positive and uplifting snapshots in time that eventually equal a fulfilled life. Everything we strive to accomplish can be considered a climb up a mountain, and most of us wouldn't want someone telling us we couldn't climb the mountain, so we set out to prove them wrong. Or we set out to prove to ourselves we can do it, and change the course of our lives in the interim. Using the analogy of climbing a mountain merely points out how changing something in your life can be somewhat difficult and tedious because it seems overwhelming, but in that same vein, you know you can put one foot in front of the other and climb that mountain. With that being said, the idea of being gracious for something every day can get to be a chore and completely defeat the purpose of feeling gratitude, so it's important to redirect your thinking throughout your daily experiences. It is not happy people who are thankful. It is thankful people who are happy. --anonymous At a Thanksgiving meal, we may talk of family members that are no longer with us, or those that couldn't be with us because they're serving their country in another country that doesn't share our holiday. We state how grateful we are for the time we had previously with them, and we look around and graciously acknowledge the family and friends that are surrounding the table now. At the end of a Thanksgiving gathering, we are full of not only copious amounts of food, but also of thankfulness. Wherever we go and interact with people, on this day, the vast majority are smiling, and look you in the eye, and genuinely mean it when they say, “thank you.” Where do our manners go on the other days of the year? Saying “please,” and “thank you,” are the pillars and backbone of a polite society, and merely brush the surface as we move up the ladder of sophistication, but saying “thank you,” acknowledges that another human being has done or given you something. Perhaps we have developed a habit of saying “thank you” when someone goes out of their way to hand you a glass when you couldn't reach it, on the other hand, how often do we fail to say it because we think it's “understood”? If that is the case, start from there and say it, it doesn't take that much effort, however for another human being to put forth effort for someone else, the least you can do is verbally tell them you appreciate them. Practicing being polite and thankful daily is a great start to experiencing gratitude in life. The real gift of gratitude is that the more grateful you are, the more present you become. --Robert Holden Honing in on what you are grateful for can be accomplished several ways; the easiest is by using and keeping a journal to write down something you were grateful for daily. At first entries may be generalized, and being thankful for the health of your family, or food to eat in the refrigerator will turn out to be your “go to” thankful items. While there is nothing at all wrong with focusing on things around you that you do have, and are mighty thankful for, use a statement like that to branch off to more specific and detailed moments of gratitude. For example, you may be glad to make it home safely after navigating I-4 and the severe traffic congestion, yet on this particular commute, a torential downpour opened up, in the midst of rush hour traffic. Not only are you thankful to make it home safely, but you made it after being on the road in hazardous conditions beyond the normal commute. Three drivers at different intervals pulled out of their slow-to-no moving lane to suddenly, and without warning, take up the space you were maintaining safely from the car in front of you. This used to be called a following distance, and we were taught to increase this as driving conditions worsen. After surviving the unexpected, you set yourself up for a nice long, steamy bath, yet your nerves and capabilities are put to test one last time as you round the curve of the ramp, suddenly hydroplaning on the slick mixture of oil and water. Nerves 100% shot, you drive slower than the speed limit, put your turn signal on a block or more before your turn, and could care less if anyone is behind you. This drive home is one to gratefully put behind you, yet the overall experience has put you in a tweaked sensitivity to the task at hand. Each unknown during the drive heightened your awareness to the hazards and potential hazards, thus keeping you in the moment. Narrowing your focus on the now steers you into being present-minded. At the end of the day, you are thankful for making it home in one piece, without damage to you, your vehicle, or anyone else's life or property. On top of it all, the experience effectuated your mind on the sole task of getting home. Learning to tune out the external static to keep focused on the present moment becomes a drill for mindfulness and graciousness. When you have an attitude of gratitude, you wake up saying thank you. -- Maya Angelou So, you have practiced deliberate gratitude by expressing explicit thanks for experiences grounded in matters of observation and presence. What comes next with the proclivity to sentient nods of appreciation on a daily basis? As gratitude is paid to the sun that shines upon your face, the co-workers that give your job an air of amusement, the serenity of a house you call home, and the ever-present circle of souls you call friends, the more experiences around you take on uplifting presence. Waking up daily to the wonderment the day might bring, colors all you do with esteem. Appreciation and fondness for mild, sunny climates can be easily dampened if the weather turns out cloudy with a good deal of precipitation. However, a cloudy, inclement day offers a respite from the daily outdoor grind. Mother Nature offers a lull in the compulsion to be outside, and instead tackle indoor activities. From being moved to deep clean your immediate environment, to taking time to veg out and read a book you've put off, the opportunity to relish another experience has presented itself. When else do you actually have a reason to be lazy for a good reason? The more you open yourself to appreciating what happens around you, the more you are prone to assimilating gratitude in all you do, even if it isn't an experience that at first wouldn't warrant thanks. While initially not a pleasant experience to wake up to your feline hacking up on the bathroom rug, isn't it about time to give those rugs a thorough wash? Just because they are vacuumed weekly, or shook out in the sunshine doesn't mean they're are their cleanest. Our feet provide the root to the earth, and the grounding to our internal center, so it stands to reason we cleanse the area upon which we spring forth. What better reason than to clean up cat puke, and sanctify our space in the interim? The idea is to look at what seems to offer adversity, and instead see it as a restorative experience. "Thanks be to my feline friend who purged from her system, so that I may recharge my environment." Gratitude becomes a state of mind as we embrace thankfulness daily. Things that initially seemed to be a damper become a platform of gratitude. Of course, initially most incidents aren't ideal, but as your perspective changes, so does your attitude towards it. All too often we move through life not taking note of the things around us. For sure we know what stands in our way, and immediately react in a negative manner, which doesn't help the situation. In most cases our reaction of escalating emotions prevents an awareness to uplifting things around you. Start the day thankful for a bed to sleep in, an indoor bathroom to relieve yourself, and fresh water to drink. In earlier times and other places, this is living in luxury. Build upon the things around you and before you react to something and send your emotions sky high, pause and reflect. How is this helping, number one, and number two what silver lining can I make out of this? Like anything else, change doesn't occur overnight, but slipping in subtle changes daily initiates an air of gratitude that will eventually author a life filled with contentment.