Gratitude, Goals, & Rituals

I have two fundamental beliefs:

1. Write down the things that are important.
2. Share things you learn with others.

This week I had the pleasure of having my heart filled with joy. In one night I was joyed, influenced, and moved.  I heard Danielle LaPorte and Gabrielle Bernstein speak in Vancouver at an event poetically named “Desire + Expect a Miracle.”  The event was showcasing both their recent works; Gabby a book called ‘May Cause Miracles’ and Danielle a multimedia guide to learning what you want most called ‘The Desire Map.’

After returning from the session, I was completely energized, influenced, and internally shifted. The speakers held a room of over two hundred captivated as they preached, gave pep talks, and jammed off the audience. Here’s what I learned….

On Gratitude…

Gratitude was the overarching theme of the night, in my ears. We started off with a meditation: palms up, backs straight, deep breath and a lil’ thank you for being here tonight. It was blissful. Gratitude went further on as Gabby encouraged us to “dwell” in gratitude. Think on that for a moment. Dwell is like a whip cream in your coffee kind of word. Its soft, warm, and feels so good next to gratitude. Maybe next we can gush with gratitude.

Celebrate: Similar to my purpose for this year, the ideal of celebrating more rang loud and clear. Gabby said, “sit your ass down and celebrate your life.” This tells me one thing: slow down and enjoy yourself. They also talked about being unapologetic about celebrating. So often we apologize, make ourselves smaller, and minimize the validity of our celebration, our pride.

Subtle Shifts: Gabby’s new book  is a guide of “subtle shifts for radical change and unlimited happiness” and as she said to us in person it’s about “transforming your life one loving thought at a time.” The concept of changing your thoughts isn’t new for me but elevating the idea by specifying loving thoughts enriches the idea. Loving thoughts are like gifts. Gifts for me and gifts for you.

On Goals….

You’re On Time: Danielle started her talk off by telling us about in the earlier stages of her career how she always felt like she was late, that she somehow was not where she was supposed to be in life and that she was late; needing to catch up, speed up, work harder, work longer, and so on. “How many of you feel like this,” she asked? Heads nodded, plenty of “”mmhrms” in the audience.  How often do we chase success, bewitched into goals, objectives, and achievements and then say to ourselves, now what? (so what). Success is flat. It’s one dimensional.

Grinding: Danielle talked briefly about the state of “grinding” – think grinding of gears, working so hard but something isn’t right. When we take on too much, we’re grinding. “No more than three goals per year” they cautioned…. Woah, I have like eight. (Why, do I have eight?)

I Feel, Therefore I am: Most profound for me was Danielle’s perspective on setting a goal around how you want to feel. The idea that when we’re at our most awesome state of mind, we are our true self. She says, we should intentionally pursue feelings over goals. Have you asked yourself how you want to feel? I know I haven’t asked. I’ve been too busy deciding what I want to do.

On Rituals…

Meditate: The big message from Gabby was meditation. Seeking out a spiritual routine and devoting energy to asking {key word is ask} for what you need. Practice asking, ask questions, seek answers and the universe will lead you in the right direction. Its the law of attraction in full effect and it works. And then, when the good things happen say “Obviously, duh” and dwell in gratitude.

Be the Lighthouse:  Be the lighthouse for others. Pray. Shine bright. And show up. Showing up is 90% of the work. Be there — be present, be shining, be strong, and the rest will come.

Be Rooted: Danielle said, “Be rooted in your definition of success. Your desire is your prayer.” Consider what it is that you can do on a daily basis that will make you feel the way you want to feel. One thing she said which struck a chord was to make small choices of intentional pleasure. Realizing when you’re your truest self is step one and the next step is to make those subtle and small choices to invite pleasure.

Both Danielle and Gabby’s websites are stocked full of goodness: free guided meditation, workbooks, and fantastic articles. Read up, soak up, and give yourself love.

Bless you.