Days 1-4 were amazing. Days 5-7? The Grace was there, but I had to look harder for it. I had to look harder, but it was there.
So…Thank you, God. Today is my 8th day of my first 100 days of Grace. As I was getting in the shower today, I was saying my affirmation and thinking about what would happen today.
After I got out, the pink bottle that contains my shower gel caught my eye. I originally bought it because, in addition to truly excellent shower gel, it contains the name of my word for 2016:
Amazing Grace.
I decided to read the label again. Here is part of what it says:
“being a humble person can, and being a helpful person can guide you through your days with grace and gratitude.”
A writing challenge on the Buddha Doodles Facebook page caught my eye: the #WriteYourHeartOpen Challenge. Basically, you get your writing materials out the night before and have them ready to go when you wake up in the morning. Then, when you get up, you can go grab your coffee/tea/cocoa, then come back to your writing, before you do anything else. There are just three steps:
Write for five minutes. About anything. Just write. After five minutes, stop.
Write down three things for which you are grateful.
Set an intention for the day.
That’s my memory of the steps, anyway. If you check out the Buddha Doodles Facebook page, scroll down to the February 1, 2014 post for the original post to read the instructions as written by the author. For Day One, participants were invited to post and tag pictures of their writing space on the Buddha Doodles Facebook page, which I did.
I thought the challenge was for the entire month of February, but after I reread the rules for this blog post, I see something about seven days…what? I have been doing it all month and will continue, since that was my original commitment.
What I have noticed:
My writing thrives when I have structure, self-imposed, or otherwise. A definite schedule works for me.
If writing is the first thing I do every day, then I do it. There is no time to let other pursuits take precedence.
You can write a lot more than you think you can in only five minutes a day. A. Lot. More.
One bonus: The intention that I set for my day every day is powerful. Whatever I write down, I do it. . . which reminds me of a book I read years ago: Write it Down, Make it Happen by Henriette Klausen.
I’ve been keeping a gratitude journal this year. A long time ago, I read Simple Abundance by Sarah Ban Breathnach and decided to give the “keeping the journal all year” thing a shot.
It was an easy enough premise: write down at least three things that you are grateful for each day. That’s it. It starts off fairly easily, but as the days, weeks, and months go on, it can get more difficult. I did it though, and completed the journal on December 31, 1998.
A few years ago, I found another one of these hardcover Simple Abundance Gratitude Journals at a yard sale for a buck; I bought it. It had one or two entries in it, but I figured that I’d just wite them out and write over them. I brought it home, put the journal away, then promptly forgot all about it.
Fast forward to December 2010: I found both that journal, and the one I kept in 1998. I decided to start the journal January 1, 2010, and I have kept it up all year. Periodically, if things were especially happy (or alternately, tough) for me in 2010, I would look back to 1998 to see how I was doing on that day twelve years ago. There were lots of ups and downs in 1998: I was expecting my second child, and my father died from cancer that year. It was difficult to read some of the entries. Turns out that the emotions may be different, but feel every bit as strong all these years later as they did back then when it happened.
Today, I was thinking that things hadn’t been going that well for the past few days, and it was looking like 2010 was not going to end on a high note. After I finished my journal entry, I decided to look back to see what I had written on this day last year. One line stood right out: “I am grateful for my life.”
It’s as true today as it was twelve years ago when I wrote it. Thank you, past self, for reminding me of this tonight, when I needed it so much.
So…Thank you, God. Today is my 8th day of my first 100 days of Grace. As I was getting in the shower today, I was saying my affirmation and thinking about what would happen today.
Karen Creamer Author, Coach, Speaker 
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