Tag Archives: gratitude

Carving Out Time

By Vicki Hughes Posted Sept. 11, 2013

I am writing a book. (Have I told you that yet?) The subject matter is Gratitude, in case that isn’t obvious from my complete fascination with the subject. As I get a little further down the line, I will be sharing more with you on this, but here is what has been on my radar.

I’ve been researching my book, and that means I have been nose-to page in books whenever I’m not at work, which isn’t very often. I have book-books and Kindle books, and of course, a herd of my own journals that I’m constantly scribbling in, like mad.

On most mornings, I try to set aside at least one hour to write. That one hour is rarely all spent writing, but sometimes it really gets rolling, and then I have to put the brakes on the writing train so I can get to work on time.

More and more, I am learning to make time. I carve it out intentionally, and part of that process is identifying the little things that rob me of the time I need. This has caused me to see how I have managed to not write a book in the past, simply because I was under the illusion that I would do it once I found the time.

Recently I felt a tiny, Thomas Edison-style light bulb appear over my head regarding time.

Here’s something to think about if you’re prone to putting things off until you find the time. Finding time is like finding money. It’s nice when it happens, but you can’t rely on it. Both money and time, to be available when you need them have to be made, and then protected, not simply found.

So. A big part of me getting this book written is making the time to write a book. As my mentor, Jim Rohn was known to say, “The don’t give out big trophies for small efforts.”

Time is passing, regardless of what I choose to do with it. I can maximize mine or let it get away. Today I intend to use it well.

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Developing Gratitude

By Vicki Hughes Posted August 13, 2013

Gratitude will change you. It will also change your circumstances. It’s really quite magical. It reminds me of taking a photography class in Junior High School. I took a photography class when I was about thirteen. Part of our job in the class was to take photographs to be used in the yearbook.

This was back in the pre-digital age, so we used a 35mm camera, with black and white film since our school couldn’t afford the equipment to develop color film. Besides, black and white is cooler and more artsy. Just ask Instagram.

When we finished a roll of film, we would take it into the closet in the school library that was our designated darkroom. We would take the film out of it’s tiny metal cylinder and treat it with a development solution. Then we would look at the negatives, and put them on a contraption that would allow us to fire the negative onto a sheet of white photo paper. That paper was pricey, so we had to really be sure it was a picture worth developing.

Then we’d bathe the photo in a development solution, and watch for the picture to begin to appear. Magic. The trick is to allow it to develop, but not over-develop. It takes some practice, some skill, and a good eye. if you do it very much, you start to fall in love with the process. Digital cameras are cool, and allow you to do things you’ll never do with a 35mm camera. For pure joy, printing a photo off of your computer will never hold a candle to developing one in a darkroom.

Which brings me back to gratitude. When we begin to tune in to things we are thankful for, and especially if we take the time to jot them down, to capture them, it’s like snapping a picture with a 35mm camera. We’ve caught the moment, and it’s stored there, Later, we get to come back and take a peek, as if we were examining a long strip of negatives, looking for what was there, what was really amazing.

Recording your gratitude, much like taking photos, will surprise you at times. You may capture things in the background, that turn out to be more important than what you were originally focused on. You thought you were focused on being grateful for a new job, but six years later, you look back at that moment and realize it was where you met your best friend. That was in the shot, but you couldn’t see it until it developed.

Gratitude, much like the process of developing film and pictures, reveals things with a bit of a time delay. I love that word, developing. We are smack dab in the midst of a world that is forgetting how development works, growing accustomed to the instantaneous. But development is crucial to that which can stand the test of time. Value and longevity and quality are not available to be zapped in the microwave, or dropped in a toaster. Things that develop over time have staying power. And so, the continued practice of gratitude has proven to me.

Four years into my personal mission to focus daily on what I am thankful for, by noticing, and writing it down, things have developed. More importantly, I have developed. I have developed the capacity to notice and appreciate the things that are right in my life, in the midst of what is not. I appreciate the opportunities, which helps me step over the adversity. I can bolster my own spirits with the written reminders of all that I have been blessed with so far, which reminds me there’s more good stuff waiting just out of sight, but on it’s way.

I have watched my gratitude move people around me to appreciate their own blessings, big and small. I have seen my finances respond to my thankful attitude, as well as my physical well being, and relationships with people. I have watched as gratitude has propped open doors of creativity, and as new opportunities have shown up at my door, wagging their tails.

So today, I am thankful for all that being grateful has taught me so far. And now, if you will excuse me, I need my gratitude journal.

What I Have Learned (So Far) About Gratitude

By Vicki Hughes Posted May 15, 2013

In December of 2009 I broke by leg. Badly. Not that there’s a great way to break your leg, but I snapped both bones just above my left ankle, and had to have a small hardware store installed to put it back together again.

Part of the misery was that I was also about eighty pounds overweight at the time, which ruled out crutches for getting around. Enter, The Walker. If you would ever like to know how it feels to be eighty or ninety years old, try relying on a walker to get around. It’s educational to say the least. My orthopedic surgeon forbid me to place weight on it for six full weeks, and thus began a spiral of events that sucked, not to put too fine a point on it.

Let’s see…during my recovery process, I was fat, broken, John’s work was a misery to him, and was financially unpredictable, I was out of work, the snow that had caused me to break my leg in the first place, continued to fall for the next several months, and each day, while John was at work, and I sat around with my left leg in the air, our three goats would break out of their pen, and stand on the table on our front porch and try to break the front window of the house with their hooves, hoping to come inside and play with me.

I was having a hard time feeling thankful. I was feeling a tad unthankful. But one thing I was thankful for was the new laptop my Dad bought me (to replace the one that BLEW UP a week after I broke my leg!) Somehow, in this shitstorm of unhappy circumstances, I decided that the only thing that might keep me from taking my walker into the kitchen and sticking my head in the oven, was figuring out a way to refocus on the things that were good in my life. I vaguely knew they existed, but I was having a hard time remembering any of them. Between the pain pills and the crappy circumstances, I was having a challenge focusing on the good stuff.

It can be hard to feel thankful when you can’t take yourself to the bathroom, or bathe yourself without help, while you worry about losing your house, and it snows in your face. It’s hard, but not impossible.

And so I began an experiment. I created a group on Facebook called Life Doesn’t Have to Be Perfect to be Thankful. Several years earlier, I’d been reading Sarah Ban Breathnach’s book, Simple Abundance, and I had been intrigued with her suggestion to create a Gratitude Journal. I had dabbled with that, and found it to be very encouraging. I thought that creating my own Gratitude Journal online, in a setting where I was putting it out there daily, might be the ticket to becoming more consistent. It turns out, I was right.

I invited a few of my friends and family members to join in, and they did. Some of them knew how challenging it was for me to find things to be thankful for at that point in my life, and some didn’t. Some people thought it was easy. It was not. It was necessary, and therapeutic, but it was hard. Sometimes I would sit there all day, trying to think up five things I could honestly feel thankful for. And then one of my online friends would post their five things…and I could remember again.

Here is what I have learned so far about belonging to a community of people who try to focus on what they are thankful for.

a) It’s contagious. You will cause other people to feel thankful to.

b) There is so much to be thankful for, you could never write it all down, even when life seems really crappy.

c) Tapping into gratitude opens you up for good things to begin showing up in your life, while ignoring the things that are wonderful shuts down the process

d) There are lots of people going through lots of challenges, and they still manage to share the good stuff, and that’s valuable.

Some people come and read what others post, and they don’t ever become part of the conversation. That’s okay. I believe they will join in when the time is right. It blesses me to know they stop by, and get a dose of gratitude, like a multi-vitamin to strengthen them through the day.

Other people tell us a little something now and then, and it’s like getting a card in the mail from an old friend. It reminds me that they are still there, still connected, still a part of this adventure with me.

And some people are actively helping me create what I consider the happiest place on Facebook. They tell us the big and the little blessings, five things at a time, that they recognize as the icing on the cake. And all of these 548+ people make me realize every day, that out of a really bad set of circumstances, you can make something really amazing. To all of you who are a part of the goodness, thank you. You are at the top of my list, everyday.

Things Don’t “Just Happen”

By Vicki Hughes Posted March 25, 2013

Working in a salon and day spa is a very rewarding and interesting job. A few days ago, I had finished a facial for a new client, and when I finished, I was doing what we call, “turning the room over.” This is the process by which the room is cleaned and prepared for the next guest. Here is a sampling of what that entails: I filed her paperwork, stripped the sheets, took all the used sheets and steam towels to the laundry room, washed and sanitized all the bowls and brushes, grabbed clean sheets and towels, re-dressed the table with sheets and blankets and made the table look inviting, heated up the neck wrap, wiped down all the surfaces and bottles and jars, replaced all the caps and put all the products back in their proper place, laid our a spa wrap, prepped new steam towels (this is code for burning the bejesus out of my fingertips) prep new dry towels, take a deep breath, and compose myself (meaning make sure I am not sweating, and that I don’t look like I just did a fifty yard dash in a windstorm.)

If I am really speedy, and don’t goof off, I might have time to use the potty, or run into the break room and wolf down three bites of the salad I abandoned two hours ago. There’s a lot going on behind the scenes. And I realize this is true of all professions. Whatever you do is harder than it looks, if you’re doing it well.

The teacher who spends hours and hours working on great lesson plans that are over in the classroom in less than forty five minutes. No wonder they get a tad crabby when some kids talk too much or are disruptive to the kids who are trying to pay attention.

The chef who goes in at the crack of ridiculous to inspect the freshness of his ingredients, chop, slice and dice and begin the simmering of the soup, which we we will zip through and grab for lunch. Do we even pause five seconds to appreciate the fact that he drug his butt out of bed in the darkness so we could have a lovely corn chowder for lunch?

The veterinarian who spent almost as much time and money to learn his job as a medical doctor, but who is willing to express our dog’s anal glands and clip their ever growing talons so we don’t have to? And they work with that smell. God bless them, I hope they have grown immune to it the same way I can no longer smell shampoo.

The barista who got up at four a.m. to make her kids lunches, and get them hustled off to the babysitter so she could be there to fix your skinny, Venti, mocha latte with extra sprinkles. Tip that girl! She smiled at you and everything.

The farmer in central Tennessee who had to beat some sense into his tractor with his bare hands, to make sure the harvest got in before the rains came and ruined it all. Without him, your soy latte would be light on the soy.

All day, everyday, countless details are being tended to just to take great care of us, the customer. The people who work so hard, know quite well that we could take our business elsewhere if we decided to. They do amazing things to make the two or three minutes we see them seem “easy.”

Today, take a few minutes to appreciate the seamlessness of good service when you see it. Call a manager over and praise their team. Write a quick email or a note of appreciation on your lunch ticket. Tell a friend if you get great service somewhere. Heck, tell two friends.

One of the best things we could do for the economy is to talk up the businesses that are getting it right. Without them, we’d all be left with crappy service from people who don’t give a rip.

What behind the scenes efforts would people be surprised to learn about jobs you’ve had?

My Sunday Five (things I’m thankful for)

By Vicki Hughes Posted March 17, 2013

1. The opportunity to see incredible artists display their work

2. Whimsy, to make me laugh, go check out www.sparkplugguy.com

3. A job that is satisfying

4. Amazing weather

5. A day of rest and relaxation, code for NO PANTS!

What are you thankful for today?

Hellbent On Happy

Staying Positive and grateful in an imperfect world laced with random asshats