I got Simple Abundance from the library and enjoyed it immensely. In it Sarah Ban Breathnach discusses daily all the things that make ours an abundant life. You can read and hear some excerpts here.
One of the things that Sarah is big on is a gratitude journal which makes sense as SA (Simple Abundance as it is called by its fans) is a women’s spiritual journal, i.e. a journal that chronicles your spiritual not emotional nor physical life. It seems that Time Warner, the publisher, always had ideas that this was something that could be something much much more. {And boy were they right if you go to Sarah’s website and see how from that one book it grew.}
So what for those who haven’t already read it, is SA like? Well to sum it up simply, it a is sort of like a daily sketchbook, where instead of pictures, you communicate with your soul and put the positive things in your life into it, here’s an example:
It was a beautiful day today. The birds were singing. The flowers are in bloom and everything is just saying Spring. It seems all so apropos that right at Easter, that perennial Spring holiday, everything just burst at the seams and cried,”I gotta bust out, I have to enjoy this heaven on earth.” and I wanted to join the panoply and give thanks and cry Hallelujah! The day was just that good.
When negative things, as surely they do, the Gratitude journals are supposed to force you to think how this can be positive. Here’s an extraordinary example of how that works:
My online friend Katherine’s daughter nearly died from a blood transfusion from what was supposed to be a relatively routine surgery back in January of this year. Katherine wrote that she was “grateful” because it had made her daughter more aware of God’s presence in her life as previously the daughter had been “too selfish” and caught up “in trivia”.
Now if this isn’t a case of sincere and lasting Gratitude, I am not sure what is, but I was totally impressed when I read this the other day. (P.S. Now 4 months later, a week before Palm Sunday, her daughter is finally out of the hospital and back home with a full recovery in sight). Hurray!
Yours of course can be more prosaic, but perhaps during this special season this is something you want to initiate and learn from Katherine’s model. I really hope to do so myself. And if you need help, Ms Ban Breathnach offers online and in person coursework to help you see the light.
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“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, author of Codependent No More.
There are several tools that I’m going to suggest you use as you begin your inner exploration. While all of them will help you become happier and more content and will nurture your creativity, this first tool could change the quality of your life beyond belief: it’s what I call a daily gratitude journal.
I have a beautiful blank book and each night before I go to bed, I write down five things that I can be grateful about that day. Some days my list will be filled with amazing things, most days just simple joys. Mikey got lost in a fierce storm, but I found him shivering, wet but unharmed. I listened to Puccini while cleaning and remembered how much I love opera.
 The gratitude journal has to be the first step or it just won’t work for you. Simplicity, order, harmony, beauty, and joy–all the other principles that can transform your life will not blossom and flourish without gratitude. It you want to travel this journey with me, the gratitude journal is not an option.
Why? Because you simply will not be the same person two months from now after consciously giving thanks each day for the abundance that exists in your life. And you have set in motion an ancient spiritual law; the more you have and are grateful for, the more will be given you…
A French proverb reminds us that “Gratitude is the heart’s memory.”
Begin this day to explore and integrate this beautiful, life-affirming principle into your life, and the miracle you have been seeking will unfold to your wonder and amazement.
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