Hello J.

When I was in a similar place after some major losses I knew I had to try something, anything to change it up. A good friend of mine lent me a meditation CD, which I listened to every morning for 15 minutes in the dark. For the first few weeks, I cried the whole way through it, I wasn’t feeling it at all. Shortly, though, I began to feel it helping center me. It was called ‘Getting into the Vortex’ or something like that (I hope this isn’t in violation of forum guidelines). Anyhow, I also started a gratitude journal. The rule I made for myself was that I had to write just one thing in it every day. Just one thing! That’s how lousy and dead I was feeling. Some days I wrote ‘my cat’ or ‘my sister’ or ‘a hot shower’ as what I was grateful for. Some days I repeated the same thing I wrote the day before. But then something amazing happened. Soon enough one thing became three things, which became 10 things, which seemed to snowball. The more I found to be grateful for (be it a great cup of coffee, a warm blanket, a smile from a stranger) the more blessings there seemed to appear to be grateful for. This totally lifted me up and “lightened me up” too. This new “lighter feeling” began to show to the world, people commented on the positive change and that brought even more positivity and light into my life. It was truly amazing how it built upon itself. The simple act of looking around at what was right in front of me to be grateful for snowballed into changing my entire life. I hope this will help you in some way.

Love,
Catdancing