Healthy Happy Loving Life: Milestones and Gratitude

Tags

beating cancer, Gratitude, Kebba Buckley Button, loss of a spouse, Practice gratitude, The life you want, UpBeat Living

© 2022 Kebba Buckley Button, MS, OM.  World Rights Reserved. http://www.kebba.com

Today marks a few milestones, and I celebrate my growth and life with rich exuberance– for a quiet person.  Nine months ago, my husband passed to Heaven, and I became a widow.  It’s all right– he was released from terrible pain, and it was his Time.  It’s not quite like when I was single before marriage.  There is a greater depth now, to my friendships, especially with those who have lost their spouses or other loved ones.  Life has a richer texture somehow.  I had my husband’s diamond wedding ring resized for me. It’s beautiful.

Today marks 10 months since I had cancer surgery and began a close relationship with the Mayo Clinic.  I have chemo every 4 weeks, but only several cycles are left.  I am shocking the doctors with my lack of side effects.  I have all my hair and no digestive issues.  But I remind them, I do energy therapy on myself daily, and I don’t eat a normal American diet.  My diet is mainly organic and based on green salads and vegetables and fruits, not grains.  I am now able to lift and drive.  My true strength is coming back, and I am hardly ever dizzy.  My mind is clear.  What a relief! I am almost ready to unearth my treadmill, which I love.  Over half the files and superfluous Stuff have left the house.  I’m still joyfully working on clearing.  It wouldn’t bother me for my home to look like the After of an HGTV project.

The UBC blog challenges–30 articles every 3 months– have helped me to have structure in this time of transition.  I wrote daily through the August, November, January, and now April challenges.  I got to know very interesting writers from various regions of the US and from a few distant countries.  I became friends with a few. I did spiritual counseling by text more than once.  I sent tiny garden gloves (hard to find!) to a 3-year-old blogger, Lia, and she later sent me tea and homemade zucchini lemon cake.  Lia named the rooster painting in my kitchen when I ran a contest– he’s called “Sunshine”, so when I walk into the kitchen in the morning I can say, “Good morning, Sunshine!”

This month, I studied poetry with Vidya Tiru, painting with Amanda Trought, Lily Leung and Alice Girard, retirement plans with Roy Ackerman, spiritual topics with Victoria Juster, and homesteading with Laurie Cover.  I went to State Capitols with Samantha Griffin Taki.  I studied coffees (yum!) with Tamara Gerber-Stutz, and homemade cooking with Melinda Egger Brown.  I learned ingredient swaps for healthy cooking from (Dr.) Dominique Brooks and got vegan recipes from Kimberly Winters.   I was inspired by the kitchen refurb Martha DeMeo pulled off; I got gardening inspiration and delicious recipes and so much more from this dear friend.  I studied content writing with Bing Aranzano.  One extraordinary week, I got to meet Florence Callender, the learning/dyslexia expert, in person, when she came to my city for a conference.  We had great fun taking photos of us both– in the same shot!   I studied creativity with Julie JordanScott.  And of course, I learned cool blogging/blogsite/website pointers from Paul Taubman, The Digital Maestro and our cheerful leader for the UBC.

For the April challenge, I wrote entirely new material every day, and I was more bold in telling my truth.  I found I was in The Flow more than ever before.  I got noticed, liked, and followed by people I had never heard of.  The new material has stoked my Ring of Fire and my healing practice.  I’m seeing clients again and working at a higher level.  I wonder what will happen in the July challenge??

So this is my last piece for a couple of months.  I’m turning my attention to writing for my new website.  I hope, in this series, I have greatly convinced many that positive living is the way to be, and it results in greater health and happiness and joy.  And that would be me and you, shaping our lives anew, ever more Healthy Happy and Loving Life^sm!

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Kebba Buckley Button is a stress management expert, holistic healer, and award-winning author who celebrates life.  She has a longtime natural healing practice and is an ordained minister. Among her books are: Discover The Secret Energized You (http://tinyurl.com/b44v3br), Inspirations for Peace Within:  Quotes and Images to Uplift and Inspire, and Sacred Meditation: Embracing the Divine.  The books are available on Amazon and through Kebba’s office.   They are also available in Scottsdale, Arizona, at the Franciscan Renewal Center bookstore and at the bookstore at St. Barnabas on the Desert Episcopal Church. Or simply email us to order:  kebba@kebba.com .  Thank you!

Books by Kebba Buckley Button

Healthy Happy Loving Life: What Thanksgiving Day Looks Like in Phoenix

Tags

effective living strategies, Gratitude, Happy Thanksgiving, Healthy Happy Loving Life, Kebba Buckley Button, stress, thanks, The life you want

© 2021 Kebba Buckley Button, MS, OM.  World Rights Reserved. http://www.kebba.com .   

All images © Kebba Buckley Button.

Thanksgiving in Phoenix has been colorful, warm, and filled with love. The Feng Shui Garden is blooming.  Lunch with friends at El Chorro Lodge on Lincoln Drive was delicious.  I hope you had a day filled with color, warmth, and love also.  And pie!  And that would be you, more and more in the realm of Healthy, Happy, and Loving Life^sm !  And Happy Thanksgiving, to you and yours!

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Kebba Buckley Button is a stress management expert, holistic healer, and award-winning author who celebrates life.  She has a longtime natural healing practice and is an ordained minister. Among her books are: Discover The Secret Energized You , Inspirations for Peace Within:  Quotes and Images to Uplift and Inspire, and Sacred Meditation: Embracing the Divine.  The books are shown and reviewed on Amazon (http://tinyurl.com/b44v3br) and can be obtained through Kebba’s office ($10 pdf, $20 softback–includes postage).  Our email/PayPal is: kebba@kebba.com .

Books by Kebba Buckley Button

 

 

Healthy Happy Loving Life: Thanksgiving Happy

Tags

effective living strategies, Gratitude, Happy Thanksgiving, Healthy Happy Loving Life, Kebba Buckley Button, stress, thanks, The life you want

© 2021 Kebba Buckley Button, MS, OM.  World Rights Reserved. http://www.kebba.com .   

Image by Megapixl

This year is a watershed year for me, and I am grateful for many things.  This year, I joined both the Cancer Club and the Widows’ Club, then had a pipe flood dissolving one third of my home.  But my overall sensation is of gratitude.  To name a few, I am grateful for:

• COVID shots and a booster
• My dermatologist, who sent a biopsy of a leg spot to a pathologist, pressuring her to look at it right away
• The pathologist, who diagnosed a rare form of aggressive pigment-free cancer
• My dermatologist, for prevailing on a surgeon friend at Mayo Clinic to get me in really fast
• My surgeon at Mayo Clinic, who made room in her jammed schedule to do my surgery 14 days after the biopsy
• My husband, for staying well enough to meet the surgeon with me
• The ambulance team that took my husband to emergency
• The staff of Honor Osborn (formerly Scottsdale Memorial), who gave my husband a few extra weeks of life
• My husband’s son, Glenn Button, who came for weeks while I was recovering from surgery
• The staff of Hospice of the Valley, who blessed my husband with comfort and peace the last 5 days of his life, at Ryan House
• Friends who have been taking me to chemo and other appointments
• Friends who helped uplift me during these strange times
• The Divine, who always answered and answers my prayers (“The gracious hand of God is upon me,” Nehemiah 2:8), and Who has constantly reminded me that He has many plans for me for the next 20 years
• The prayer teams of OSL and St. Barnabas on the Desert Episcopal Church, who have prayed lovingly for me and my new life, and who have become the dearest friends 
• The contractor whose team refurbished my flooded home in three days, rather than the promised five days, and who did an exquisite job
• My sister who preceded me in the Cancer Club and is living with flying colors

Image by Megapixl

Living in purpose and gratitude, I find each tiny thing is so sweet– a new brand of coffee, Trader Joe’s eggnog, a quick text from a friend, my car working so beautifully, the Full Moon set against extraordinary clouds, a stranger’s smile.  I am actually happy!  Can you live in purpose and gratitude?  You bet.  And now you are more and more in the realm of Healthy, Happy, and Loving Life^sm !  And Happy Thanksgiving, to you and yours!

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Kebba Buckley Button is a stress management expert, holistic healer, and award-winning author who celebrates life.  She has a longtime natural healing practice and is an ordained minister. Among her books are: Discover The Secret Energized You , Inspirations for Peace Within:  Quotes and Images to Uplift and Inspire, and Sacred Meditation: Embracing the Divine.  The books are shown and reviewed on Amazon (http://tinyurl.com/b44v3br) and can be obtained through Kebba’s office ($10 pdf, $20 softback–includes postage).  Our email/PayPal is: kebba@kebba.com .

Books by Kebba Buckley Button

 

 

Healthy Happy Loving Life: Tiny Things Can Have Great Impact!

Tags

effective living strategies, God's gifts, Gratitude, Kebba Buckley Button, stress, Tiny things great impact

© 2021 Kebba Buckley Button, MS, OM.  World Rights Reserved. http://www.kebba.com

Image by Jane Stroebel on Unsplash

Golda Meir, a former Prime Minister of Israel, is famously quoted as pointing out the power of tiny things.  One version is “People who think one person can’t make a difference have never been to bed with a mosquito.”  (In recent years versions of this quote have also been attributed to the Dalai Lama and Anita Roddick, founder of The Body Shoppe.  But Golda Meir said it first.)  There are now mugs and t-shirts you can buy online, using a version of this quote.  Hopefully, the effect is to encourage people to do their part– to make a little difference where they can.  Tiny things can have huge impact, whether positive or negative.

As you well know, a tiny thing can ruin your finances or your day.  Look at the destructive power of a carpenter ant or a termite, either of which can help destroy a home.  Think of the nail that punctured your tire, and you spent an hour or more at the shop, getting the tire repaired or replaced. Think of the small screw that somehow got into my garbage disposal and jammed it; a contractor saved me hundreds of dollars by locating and extracting the screw!  The garbage disposal began working perfectly!  It was waiting for relief.

In September, I had a pipe spring a tiny leak inside a wall.  You may need to look closely, to see the enthusiastic squirting water (may look like a cobweb) in this picture:

Image by Kebba Buckley Button. Pipe leak inside a wall.

The inside of this wall had been dry for at least the 17 years I have owned this home.  But this tiny stream of water soaked the carpeting and walls, half of which had to be hacked away.  So what caused the pipe to breach?  We’ll never know. But I believe a lot of little “random” events are actually the Divine giving us an unrealized gift.  Not only did my insurance get the pipe repaired, but it also provided me new walls, paint, and flooring for the entire bedroom, master closet, and laundry closet.  Plus a nearby vanity.  I recognize this escapade, which took 6 weeks to “cure”, as Heaven’s gift to me of a $12,000 fresh bedroom.  Thank you, God!

On September 12, I walked on a small wet spot on the bedroom carpet.  I could have been annoyed.  But this tiny thing made a great difference, being the catalyst for rebuilding most of my master suite.  I am not the least bit annoyed, as I am with the occasional visit from a mosquito.  I am not resentful.  I am grateful! I have a new bedroom to enjoy.  Let’s be alert for tiny things that look like a problem but are actually turning into great gifts.  Do you have examples you would like to share?  And that’s us, ever more Healthy Happy and Loving Life^sm!  

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Kebba Buckley Button is a stress management expert, holistic healer, and award-winning author who celebrates life.  She has a longtime natural healing practice and is an ordained minister. Among her books are: Discover The Secret Energized You (http://tinyurl.com/b44v3br), Inspirations for Peace Within:  Quotes and Images to Uplift and Inspire, and Sacred Meditation: Embracing the Divine.  The books are available on Amazon and through Kebba’s office.   To email us, kebba@kebba.com .

Books by Kebba Buckley Button

Healthy Happy Loving Life: Let go and let LOVE

Tags

Dealing with stress, Effective living, Gratitude, Healthy Happy Loving Life, Kebba Buckley Button, Love, Stress Management

© 2021 Kebba Buckley Button, MS, OM.  World Rights Reserved.

 

Today, I’m sharing a story of conflict, of grace, and of love. As a professional healer and uplifter, I would love it if we never had personality clashes, anger, or hurt. But that is not human nature. We can and must seek to resolve the unhappy rifts that occasionally try to tear at good relationships. We can and must seek peaceful responses to conflict. We can and must seek deep, immoveable personal peace, Peace Within.  We can and must substitute Love and grace for anxiety and hurt.

And that is where today’s story comes from. Some weeks ago, I suddenly had to do something for my husband’s health, just before rushing to a meeting. I texted the leader that I might be 20 minutes late. But she knew I would be there in time for my part of the meeting. So while I dislike being late, I was in good shape when I arrived, and I was pleased to be less late than I had estimated. As I exhaled and stepped into the meeting room, the leader burst into a laugh and asked, “SO ARE YOU STRESSED???” Hmm. Wait. No.  I’m a stress management expert, with award-winning books and a long track record to prove it.

At the end of the meeting, the leader inexplicably decided to tell the group loudly that “The funniest thing happened at the beginning of the meeting!” Laughing like this was hysterically funny, she told the group I had blown in, totally stressed out and ragged, and she had had to calm me down. I kept smiling and pleasantly saying, no, no, that didn’t happen.

Actually I felt very violated. I recalled other times over the years (25) when this woman had made me the center of attention and belittled me, laughing. I couldn’t imagine going back to that group and giving her another chance to create a scene at my expense. I called one friend who had been at the meeting, for a reality check. I asked if she thought the meeting scene had damaged me. Her answer: no, because of the strong personality of the meeting leader, Mary. People would have chalked off what the woman said about me as, “That’s just Mary!”

I really appreciated my friend’s perspective. Still, I have long hated the little scenes Mary creates, as have many others who have left the group for this reason. I really needed to decide whether to ever go back to the group and possibly have her target me again. I continued to feel violated and angry for over a week.  I was diligently processing what happened, the normal way.

Then, one day, a strange thing happened. I suddenly was filled with commanding waves of love for Mary. I suddenly was present to the cavalcade of good projects we had shared over the 25 years of friendship. I was relieved of my negative feelings about Mary’s behavior. I could only feel love. It was a love takeover! I was totally over my hurt and anger toward Mary.  It was that fast.

I walked into the next meeting early, feeling nothing but love for Mary.  We had a great hug.  She asked if she should apologize to me in front of the group.  I said that’s very gracious, but no, let’s just go forward as if it never happened. She was surprised, but she could see I meant it:  I was completely over it, like it never happened.

I was blessed to be washed with waves of Love. It was easy to let go and let Love solve it.  I was even more Healthy Happy and Loving Life^sm.  When it’s your turn for hurt, wash it with Love and see what happens.

 

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Kebba Buckley Button, MS, OM, is a stress solutions expert, holistic guide, and award-winning author who celebrates life.  She has a longtime energy healing practice and is an ordained minister. Among her books are: Discover The Secret Energized You (http://tinyurl.com/b44v3br), Inspirations for Peace Within:  Quotes and Images to Uplift and Inspire, and Sacred Meditation: Embracing the Divine.  The books are available on Amazon and through Kebba’s office.   To email us, kebba@kebba.com .

Books by Kebba Buckley Button

Healthy Happy Loving Life: Get Joy From Gratitude

Tags

Effective living, grateful, Gratitude, In-joy-meant, joy, Kebba, Stress Management

© 2021 Kebba Buckley Button, MS, OM.  World Rights Reserved.

Joyful hibiscus tree in the Feng Shui Garden

How many times have you heard people exclaim, “Don’t let anyone steal your joy!”  That’s lovely advice if you started with joy.  But many grew up without joyful relatives or joyful circumstances, and they are not very familiar with joy.

Henri Nouwen said,

Joy does not simply happen to us.  We have to choose joy and keep choosing it every day.

© 2021 Kebba Buckley Button, MS, OM. http://www.kebba.com

The ultimate answer to finding joy is to practice gratitude.  Start with lovely flowers, for example.  Select some that appeal to you and study them and their unreasonable beauty.  Joy will seep into your consciousness as you begin to weave the wonder of the flowers into your mind and heart.  Feel grateful.  Give thanks, if you are a person of faith.

Now study the clouds during the day, the sunset, and the stars at night.  Give thanks for all this beauty.  Watch a toddler run and laugh.  Feel grateful.  Watch a favorite dog or cat and enjoy its hijinks.  Feel grateful.

I believe very deeply that we are in-joy-meant– that we are designed to be in joy.  So keep practicing these studies in gratitude, and you will develop a joy that no one can steal.  And that’s you being ever more Healthy, Happy, and Loving Life^sm!  It’s up to you!  

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Kebba Buckley Button, MS, OM, is a stress solutions expert, holistic guide, and award-winning author who celebrates life.  She has a longtime energy healing practice and is an ordained minister. Among her books are: Discover The Secret Energized You (http://tinyurl.com/b44v3br), Inspirations for Peace Within:  Quotes and Images to Uplift and Inspire, and Sacred Meditation: Embracing the Divine.  The books are available on Amazon and through Kebba’s office.   To email us, kebba@kebba.com .

Books by Kebba Buckley Button

Healthy Happy Loving Life: Election Day Gratitude

Tags

Dealing with stress, Election Day, freedom, Gratitude, Kebba Buckley Button, stress, The life you want, Vote

©2020 Kebba Buckley Button, MS, OM.  World Rights Reserved.

Photo by Tiffany Tertipe on Unsplash

Election Day in the US will be 4 days from now, Tuesday, November 3. Ours is a fairly young country of only 244 years. Although the country was founded on principles of freedom, of “life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness” our election history has evolved in steps. Yesterday, I dropped off my ballot at a box at the Scottsdale City Hall before meeting a friend for lunch. I took photos in the garden-like landscaping along the Scottsdale Mall.  Today, we vote with relative ease and flexibility, but this wasn’t always so.

Much has changed in the World in the last few centuries. We have so much to be grateful for.  There are countries that have no open elections, or the ballot has only one candidate. Or the non-elected candidate refuses to accept the election results (search “Venezuelan presidential crisis”).

In the US, we have indigenous and immigrant populations. Some people were here already, some were dumped here before 1776 as British prisoners, some sailed here, and unfortunately some were brought as cargo.  African Americans were emancipated by the 13th amendment in 1863. But, in a lot of different steps, they finally got the national right to vote unimpeded, with the Voting Rights Act of 1965.  Yes, this was a big issue until 1965 (search “Martin Luther King”).  And, thanks to voter suppression (search “voter suppression”), not all Blacks who want to vote are yet getting to vote.  Currently, Blacks are 13.4% of the US population, and in 2008, the Black vote increased to a proportionate 13% of the total vote.

Women in the US got the right to vote with the ratifying of the 19^th Amendment in 1920 (search “women’s suffrage”).  This was hard-won, beginning with the efforts of Susan B. Anthony and others in the 1800’s.

Photo by element5 digital on Unsplash

Decades ago, voting was done on Election Day, at polling locations only. You needed a written excuse to get an absentee ballot you could mail in or provide to the Recorder’s office.  Only several excuses, like “employed in another country”, were acceptable.

Today, in Phoenix, we can get a mail-in ballot just by requesting it, which we can do conveniently online.  We are then able to consider our votes in the quiet of our own homes, studying at least 3 election information booklets that have arrived in the mail.  After marking our ballots, we can then mail them in by a clearly given deadline, or drop them off at clearly available locations. Partially due to long lines in recent elections, the hours and locations for voting have been greatly expanded in many areas.

Now people can find drop-off locations by checking links on their cel phone.  And that’s how I  ended up at the Scottsdale City Hall and followed the signs. And found an unattended box, with no line. And saw a steady trickle of people also dropping off green envelopes.  Monday, I’ll take advantage of ballot-tracking online, and see that my ballot has been counted.

As the commercial used to say, “you’ve come a long way, baby!”  And there is so much to be grateful for.  We are blessed to live in this country in this time.  And I am really feeling the sweet joy of Healthy Happy Loving Life^sm!  Are you in?

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Kebba Buckley Button is a stress management expert and award-winning author who celebrates life.  She also has a longtime natural healing practice and is an ordained minister. Among her books are: Discover The Secret Energized You (http://tinyurl.com/b44v3br), Inspirations for Peace Within:  Quotes and Images to Uplift and Inspire, and Sacred Meditation: Embracing the Divine.  The books are available on Amazon and through Kebba’s office.   To email us, kebba@kebba.com .

Books by Kebba Buckley Button

Upbeat Living: Gratitude for a Writing Challenge

Tags

Gratitude, Kebba Buckley Button, stress, The life you want, UpBeat Living, Writing a blog

© 2016 Kebba Buckley Button, MS, OM.  World Rights Reserved.

 

In Upbeat Living^sm, gratitude is a major dimension of living, creating, and getting the life you want.  As it happens, today, I am completing a 31-day writing challenge, the Ultimate Blog Challenge, and I am feeling overwhelming gratitude.  Here is some of what I’m experiencing gratitude for.

• The organizers of the Ultimate Blog Challenge, Paul Taubman and Danni Ackerman, for setting it up again and running it every 3 months, for a full month each time.
• The discipline of assembling the components of an article every day: theme, photo or 2, poster, quotes, text, format, publishing, sharing. I can see that time and structure translating to my next project:  getting my new website done.  That seems much easier now.  Bite off, chew, bite off, chew.
• The core participants, who teamed along most steadily and supported each other throughout. I will miss interacting with them, but I’ll keep up with some who have become friends.  I am grateful to have gotten to know them better, and to count on their values and sensibilities.  A few of these are Ken Weliever, Jeanine Byers, Vicki Maheu, Cindy Browning O’Donnell, Martha DeMeo, Tammy Rome, Karen Lee Banks, Alice Gerard, Maria Silvo, Nick Roseblade, Alana Mautone, Nicole Bianchi, and Paul Taubman.
• An odd feeling of being motivated by my success in systematically completing this Challenge. So often we think motivation breeds success.  But I’m very present, just now, to the opposite effect:  success breeds motivation.
• A new cheery comfort with using only closed-top mugs in my office. It may sound minor, but it eliminates a possible repeat of the Great Hot Chocolate Incident of 2011.  It’s saving massive future time and money.
• A refreshed collection of articles on my blog. Blog visitors will generally start from the most recent article, and even if they read through 31 articles, they will be seeing my freshest and best work.  I expect to continue blogging weekly, midweek, with my spiritual email still going out on Sunday evenings.
• Google listings! Google has picked up some of my articles and a number of my images!  It’s the articles with the most comments that it shows.  So those comments, friends, are literally very valuable.  Huge thanks to anyone who read and commented on my articles this month, and always.

So I’m whelmed with joy and overwhelmed with gratitude.  Thank you!  I look forward to our further adventures.  Will you keep me posted on your journey?  And in gratitude, that’s Upbeat Living!

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Energy – Peace – Meditation

• If you enjoy this post, please click “like” in the FB widget in the right hand column! You’ll have our undying gratitude plus a huge rise in your Good Karma! Due to a recent FB change, our “likes” look low.  Thanks for your help!
• Kebba Buckley Button is a stress management expert.  She also has a natural healing practice and is an ordained minister. She is the author of the award-winning book, Discover The Secret Energized You (http://tinyurl.com/b44v3br), plus the 2013 book, Peace Within:  Your Peaceful Inner Core, Second Edition(http://tinyurl.com/mqg3uvc ). Her newest book is Sacred Meditation: Embracing the Divine, available through her office.  Just email SacredMeditation@kebba.com. 
• For an appointment or to ask Kebba to speak for your group: calendar@kebba.com .

Upbeat Living: Gratitude, Power, Peace

Tags

David Steindl-Rast, Gratitude, Kebba Buckley Button, Melody Beattie, peace, peace within, Peacemaking, personal peace, stress, UpBeat Living

© 2014  Kebba Buckley Button, MS, OM.  World Rights Reserved.

Fotolia

This morning I woke up realizing my mind was chanting “thank you, thank you, thank you, thank you.”  I had a perfect day yesterday, with meaningful paying work, good food, satisfying writing and editing, a client meeting, and a professional meeting full of loving colleagues and friends.  After the meeting, I drove home in my cute PT Cruiser with the great air conditioning and hung out with my amazing, delightful husband.  I was (am) so grateful!  It would be hard for life to be sweeter.  My consciousness was so filled with peace within, so permeated with my gratitude, that my brain was chanting it when I woke up today.

 In daily life we must see, that it is not happiness that makes us grateful, but gratefulness that makes us happy.

~ Brother David Steindl-Rast

So: what if everyone on the Planet were this grateful and happy for the Good?  Wouldn’t there be less stress and more Upbeat Living?  Would we not all be quicker with appreciation and slower to anger (Prov 14:29)?  Could we end up with peace among peoples and nations?

Gratitude unlocks the fullness of life. It turns what we have into enough, and more.  It turns denial into acceptance, chaos to order, confusion to clarity.  It can turn a meal into a feast, a house into a home, a stranger into a friend.  Gratitude makes sense of our past, brings peace for today, and creates a vision for tomorrow. 

~ Melody Beattie

Do you dream of world peace?  A basic practice of peacemaking is to BE the peace we want to see. Then our inner peace multiplies all around us into a force of and for peacefulness.  One of the negative human traits that generates the most conflicted thinking and conflicted interacting is resentment.  And the most effective antidote for resentment is gratitude.  When we are unhappy or frustrated with someone else’s choices, we feel resentment.  And resentment can turn into anger, conflict, and violence.  Resentment is the basis of racism and of religious hatred.

But if we focus on how grateful we are for our good and for the good of others, we cannot simultaneously be in resentment.  Focusing on the good, and our gratitude for every positive thing and every positive happening, is the basis for joy.  And joyful people emanate peacefulness.  They BE the peace they want to see.  Are you in?

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● Kebba Buckley Button is a stress management expert.  She is the author of the award-winning book, Discover The Secret Energized You (http://tinyurl.com/b44v3br), plus the 2013 book, Peace Within:  Your Peaceful Inner Core, Second Edition (http://tinyurl.com/mqg3uvc).  She also has a natural healing practice and is an ordained minister.

● Liked this article?  You can buy Kebba’s books:  just click the links!

• Discover The Secret Energized You (http://tinyurl.com/b44v3br). 
• Peace Within:  Your Peaceful Inner Core (Second Edition) (http://tinyurl.com/mqg3uvc)             

● Enjoyed this post?  Please click “like” in the FB widget in the right hand column!  You’ll have our undying gratitude plus a huge rise in your Good Karma.

● Please comment!

● Get these articles by email– just click the Subscribe Free option in the right column.

● Reach the writer at kebba@kebba.com .

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

UpBeat Living: When 19 Die for You

Tags

Firefighters, First responders, Gratitude, Grief, Hotshots

© 2013 Kebba Buckley Button.  World Rights Reserved.

 

© Bretwalda | Dreamstime Stock Photos

On June 30^th this year, a wildfire destroyed half the tiny town of Yarnell, Arizona.  It also killed 19 expert firefighters, called “Hotshots”.  One member of the team, the Lookout, survived, after warning the team the wind had shifted and himself following protocol to move to the next lookout position.  Rescuers found the 19 bodies, together with 19 fully deployed fireshields.  At this point, the fire was 0% contained.

The unincorporated town of Yarnell had around 649 residents as of the 2010 Census.  The town is northwest of Phoenix and southwest of Prescott.  This week, the entire town was evacuated due to raging fires.  The Granite Mountain Hotshots, a 20-member team out of the 92-member Prescott Fire Department, were a team specializing in fighting wildfires.  They had successfully fought back and contained a previous area wildfire.  This time, residents remember the Hotshots literally being right behind them as they fled their homes.  The Hotshots were fighting back the fire that was about to envelope, and did envelope, their homes.  The firefighters saved all the residents and half the buildings in Yarnell.  But no one could save the Granite Mountain Hotshots when a wall of fire overcame them.  Even the Pentagon dispatched special fire-fighting aircraft.

At this moment, on the evening of July 3^rd, the fire is 45% contained.  The entire town of Yarnell is in emergency lodgings. The funeral has been held for the 19. Aside from shock and grief, admiration and gratitude were the overwhelming moods of the funeral day.  There were many hugs for the surviving Hotshot, the Lookout, himself a 3-year veteran firefighter.  Those saved by the Hotshots are asking, “How can you respond when someone dies for you?”

How can we respond to this much loss?  How can we thank those who died doing what they passionately wanted to do?  How could you ever thank someone who died while saving you?  We are left with our tears, our admiration, and our questions.

 

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