Sunshine Mind

This Week's Quotation:

Gratitude is a vaccine, an antitoxin, and an antiseptic. Gratitude can be a vaccine that prevents the invasion of a disgruntled attitude. As antitoxins prevent the disastrous effects of certain poisons and diseases, thanksgiving destroys the poisons of faultfinding and grumbling. When trouble has smitten us, a spirit of thanksgiving is a soothing antiseptic.

~ Rev. John Henry Jowett. Heaven’s Hallelujah

Sunshine Mind

Terri McCartney

I wish you bountiful blessings on this day the United States celebrates Thanksgiving.

I enjoy starting my day with a gratitude rant. It's a practice I established last Thanksgiving that has been like oxygen for my soul and sunshine for my mind. As my mind focuses on each gratitude, I feel I am radiating a celebratory Yes! to life’s treasures, sending ripples of blessings to the world. Expressing appreciation is like saying to the Universe, Use me to generate more of this, please!

Scientists have discovered that a daily practice of gratitude improves mental and physical health, lowers blood pressure, reduces depression, and increases happiness. It’s also true that once we get gratitude flowing, our mind will generate more things to be grateful for, and before we know it, every cell in our being is grooving with gratitude.

We cultivate appreciation by looking for all the reasons to love life. Some days, the gratitude flows easier than it does on others. Yet the best time for a gratitude rant is when you need an antitoxin of gratitude to dissolve a disgruntled disposition before it sours even more. Once we tap into that attitude of gratitude, it prospers our lives with more and more things for which to be grateful.

I like to begin with appreciation for simple things that are often taken for granted—food and shelter, hot water for a shower, the glory of the morning sun, a great cup of coffee, soul-moving music, etc. This fuels thoughts of more things I’m grateful for. Give it a try. Very quickly, you’ll radiate an attitude of gratitude that establishes a powerful force field that spreads streams of hallelujahs to every cell in your being and every person and place you contact.

May your heart be filled with gladness this holiday season, appreciating all the wondrous ways you are blessed.

About Open Windows

We, the authors of this blog, dedicate it to the transparent exploration of the world's sacred scripture and enlightened spiritual thought. We believe that the original inspiration of all faiths comes from a common source, named and revered in a myriad of ways. With that understanding, the innumerable symbols, beliefs, and practices of faith cease to divide. They become open windows to a common reality that inspires and unifies us. We find deeper insight and nourishment in our own faith and from the expression of faith from others.

We hope these weekly quotations and meditations speak to your heart and soul.