Gratitude And Trust

Gratitude and trust. That’s something I’ve been mulling over these last few days.

It’s difficult to be grateful or trusting when you are ill or when your finances are unstable or life is going totally in the opposite direction to what you had planned. How can we be grateful for things that don’t seem to be going well? Or an uncertain future?That’s precisely where trust comes in. Trusting that all things work for our good – knowing that the Universe is conspiring to ensure that what happens to us is for our best!

The last two weeks have been a good test for me to see if I can keep an attitude of gratitude when ill. I’m afraid I really threw it out of the window when I was ill and my husband who was worse needed my help. Trying to run house, take care of and walk the dog, look after Jose and myself – that took all of me and I often grumbled. Jose tells me I was acting as if he was faking an illness. Gratitude fail!

By the time, I was completely down though, I managed to pull up my ‘gratitude socks’ and even if my body complained, my soul was grateful!

I think one thing that sums up gratitude and trust is a saying drawn from Native American wisdom:

Give thanks for unknown blessings already on the way!

It’s one thing to know this in our mind and quite another thing to practice it. I’m linking up to Laurel Regan’s gratitude link up with my gratitude list:

• I’m grateful that I’m on the road to recovery from the ‘flu.
• I’m grateful for my parents who sent us food through the last two weeks. Also for family that we could call upon when we were ill.
• For Vidya who enquired about my health every day and who pitched in with posts on Write Tribe at short notice.
• For all the books I have access to and that kept me busy through the last few days.
• For our maid who has been so diligent about her work.
• Thankful that I don’t have to request anyone for leave. I can rest when I want to without feeling any guilt.
• For Jose – just for being himself. 🙂
• I’m giving thanks for unknown blessings that are already on their way!

 

Today, I am also sharing with you about Gratitude and Trust – a book I received from NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.

Gratitude and Trust: Six Affirmations That Will Change Your Life

Paul Williams, Tracey Jackson

PENGUIN GROUP Blue Rider Press
Paul Williams is an alcoholic.

Tracey Jackson is not.

But together, these two close friends have written Gratitude and Trust, a book designed to apply the principles of the recovery movement to the countless people who are not addicts but nevertheless need effective help with their difficulties and pain.
Williams, the award-winning songwriter, actor, and performer, has embraced a traditional alcoholism recovery plan for more than two decades of sobriety. Jackson, a well-known TV and film writer—and veteran of many years of traditional therapy—has never been a drunk or a drug abuser, but she realized that many of the tenets of Williams’s program could apply to her. In Gratitude and Trust, Williams and Jackson ask: What happens to those who struggle with vexing problems yet are not full-blown addicts? Are there any lessons to be learned from the foundational and time-tested principles of the recovery movement?

Whether you’re tethered to your phone or you turn to food for comfort; whether you’re a perfectionist and can’t let things go or are too afraid to fail to even try; whether you can find intimacy only on the Internet or you’ve been involved in a string of nasty relationships—the first step toward feeling better about yourself and your life is the realization that you are what’s standing in your way. Williams and Jackson have designed a new, positive program, based on a half-dozen new affirmations, that can help conquer your vices, address personal dysfunction, and start to brighten the darkest moods. Gratitude and Trust is an essential, inspirational, and uplifting guide to identifying and changing maladaptive behaviors in order to uncover your most productive, healthiest self.

My views:

This is a book that will appeal to anyone who is struggling to overcome self-sabotaging behaviour – unwanted habits and emotional issues – in other words, all of us! I found it meaningful, authentic and well-presented. The authors have shared their own struggles and how these affirmations have helped them on their journey of ‘recovery’:

1. Something needs to change, and it’s probably me.
2. I don’t know how to do this but something inside me does.
3. I will learn from my mistakes and not defend them.
4. I will make right the wrongs I’ve done whatever possible.
5. I will examine my behavior on a daily basis.
6. I will live in love and service, gratitude and trust.

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Do you think gratitude and trust are interconnected?