How much gratitude do ya need to be healthy?

Humbly and respectfully, this is all about working toward taking deep and abiding ownership of a WAY OF LIFE in which one gathers a genuinely honest spirit of true appreciation and gratitude…more and more each moment. What makes this all the more real, is in knowing that among the greatest gifts of all is that there is always room for improvement: It is a significant aspect of taking true responsibility for one’s own health and well-being. This deep and abiding sense of living loving gratitude greatly enhances the quality of our lives, and is a substantive part of a dynamic of raising ourselves up, up, and up, so well beyond what are often pernicious stagnant plateaus which can be like a living death.

This splendidly healthful outlook is distinguished by its remarkable, thought-provoking, and ingenious notion of coalescing ethics, morality, and deeply rooted insight/objectivity skills with concepts of health and wellness, i.e., True Health through True Responsibility. A primary notion within this philosophy is that one cannot realize true health without the necessary and genuinely skilled attributes of true appreciation and true honesty. It is a deep and abiding sense of mindfulness, insight, morality, clear objectivity – learning the genuine skill of being able to look within and without (into one’s internal and external environments), without fear, without preset patterns of thinking, and/or weight of expectations. AND in addition, it is with the SO healthful spirit of the bright beautiful living light of forgiveness.

Certainly this is ‘tough stuff,’ to say the least…but quite likely there may be very little that could be more rewarding. As an example, and to put it most simply, the notion that, each moment, we are living, breathing, thinking/intelligent, free-willed functioning beings, on a lava-filled rock/planet which supports us while we act out our innumerable comedies and dramas on its surface/stage setting, while spinning at 1000 miles per hour, traveling through space at an average of 66,000 miles per hour around a star, in a solar system tuned like a clock, in a galaxy in a universe moving at least at the speed of light, means, when one views it objectively, that each moment is by any rational and appreciative standard, a miracle without measure. And truly, this is just one example of the innumerable blessings for which we can choose to be appreciative of in our lives: Just the ‘tip of the iceberg’ so-to-speak.

No matter how difficult life is for us, no matter the many ‘thorns in our side’ in our daily lives, how dare we not appreciate the gift of each moment for the miracles that they are! Why do we not feel a deep and abiding rational, emotional, and even spiritual appreciation for each moment, in each moment, as a way of life, a way of being? Maybe the key to this is outrageously simple: we need to overcome our seemingly instinctive fear of a deep, abiding, altruistic, and living loving spirit of gratitude which is congruent with gathering a level of objective insight that introduces us to the notion of not needing anything to hide behind. Such healthful clarity is a significant aspect of what is humbly described as a ‘glimpse of heaven.’

John F Kennedy once said, “As we express our gratitude, we must never forget that the highest appreciation is not to utter words but to live by them.” This may be an especially significant point to make on this day – Memorial Day.

We can face and overcome our clinging, our addiction to desire and fear of healthful change. This healthful way of being cannot be realized without deep gratitude…without gathering a genuine spirit of true appreciation more and more as a way of life – way of being. It is consistent with living each day in a sparkling spine-tingling/shivering fashion in which we are resplendently recharged and inspired anew. — Dr. Glen Hepker (Copyright 2011)