Vivid Flasbacks

I've been pushing myself some what physically lately to feel as though I am accomplishing something these days. I've decided to take it easy this week as my body is screaming at me to slow down. So I just took a walk this morning around the back roads around my house. I didn't bring a watch, a cell phone, or even water. It was just me and my ipod and the sun decided to come along. As I was walking down the street I remembered what an old counselor used to tell me, which was to look around at everything as if you have never seen it before. It brings a whole new appreciation and clarity to life that I find I'm missing most of the time. So I decided to try and do this activity as much as I possibly could on my walk. I began with looking up at the trees. They were sooooo green and it was beautiful the way the sun peaked through the holes of the leaves. I saw the dew and the previous days' rain sticking to the grass. I stopped along a stream and listened to this small babbling brook and was extremely sad to find that some one had thrown trash in the woods below (I thought about picking it up but had no safety means to do that haha).

As I was walking of course my mind began to wander. I thought about things that I'm actively trying to not think about on a regular basis and for just this hour walk I decided to let myself think about the past few months. Regret, jealousy, rage, anger, sadness, happiness all arose. It is amazing how much emotion we can go through just by a single thought that occurs in our brain. Then our brain signals all of its amazing electrical currents to make us respond to these thoughts. What if some one didn't have that capability to respond to their thoughts? Would that be a blessing in disguise or would that person be completely numb to everything because they had no capability to respond? Interesting things to think about and appreciate the natural way we were made. I think it is so easy to get caught up with focusing on all the negatives going on in ones' life and forget about all the good that is going on at the same time. For instance, as I write this post, I haven't actually done much today except take this walk, read, and eat food, so I could say to myself, "wow you have no purpose right now do you?" haha but that wouldn't really be nice to say to myself, so instead, how beautiful is it that I can relax right now and lie on the floor with the sun shining on my face through the window.

Simplicity. I think that is what it all comes down to. We can complicate our lives as much as we want and create drama and wallow in our own self pity or we can flip it all around, decide to put on the rosy colored glasses, and feel blessed for all the little things we do have. As frustrated I am with my life at the current moment in time and the decisions I have made, I feel grateful for this time that I've given myself, even if I don't want to be taking it right now, I know I need to so that I can center myself after years of anguish and depression. So what are you grateful for?