Count Your Blessings

Count Your Blessings (instead of sheep) - Irving Berlin

Once we get past the hustle and bustle of the holiday season I look forward to the time when I can sit down, slow down and best of all hunker down; preferably with a really good book or puzzle and something tasty to drink.  It's at that slow pace that I can look around and appreciate everything around me, look back on the year and the good that came from it and dream of all the possibilities of the year to come.

It's so easy to focus on all the things that went wrong in our day to day lives.    I can hear myself listing off all the negatives and misfires.   I hear my kids doing the same.    Negative breeds negative.  When I catch myself in that mode it is usually coincides with times when I'm not feeling as healthy, have low energy, am eating poorly and in less than positive relationships with my family, friends and co-workers.  I almost have to hit that low point to shock myself out of it.  Ok, that brings visuals from Moonstruck - "Snap out of it!"

We lose a lot of sleep over worrying about our lives and the disappointments we have experienced.   They keep us up at night and then that becomes a negative.   "I didn't sleep well last night, worrying about this or that or the other thing."   Why not turn that around and focus on the good from the day and the wonder that will come tomorrow;  count our blessings and drift off to the gifts that make up our lives.

Merry Christmas everyone!  Enjoy the memories from this past year and dream deeply of all the wonderful possibilities that are to come in the new year and beyond.  I'm feeling sleepy already and I haven't yet touched that tasty drink!