Thankful Archives — Page 13 of 15

Five Essentials For A Long, Happy & Healthy Relationship

By Kathy Gottberg
Filed under: Aware, Meaningful, Sustainable, Thankful

Real love takes more than flowers once a year!

I’ve never considered myself an expert on relationships. Instead, I’ve always thought of myself as extremely fortunate that I had such a great marriage and partnership. But this Valentine’s Day is a year when Thom and I will be celebrating our 35^th wedding anniversary and I can honestly say I love him now much more than when we first got together. So, upon reflection, I might not be an expert, but I do believe that along the way I’ve learned a few things that makes for a happy life between two people.

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When Is Enough Enough? And Five Tips To Help Find Out

By Kathy Gottberg
Filed under: Meaningful, Rightsized, Thankful

Click On Photo for Video

Over the weekend, Thom and I had dinner with a friend whose lifestyle changed dramatically in the last couple of years. Our friend, Tami* was single for most of the 30+ years we’ve known her. Then a couple of years ago she married a very wealthy man. Although Tami was always financially secure in her life, she now admitted how great it was to never have to worry about bills or finances ever again. Unfortunately, her joy was short-lived. Within five minutes, she began complaining about the high amount of taxes she and her new husband would be paying for 2011 along with the drain her new husband’s adult children were on the family. Later she grumbled about how unfair it was of the current political administration to even consider raising her tax rate. The conversation was a great reminder that it is easy to forget that our sense of well-being, comfort and peace of mind has less to do with how much money we have—and everything to do with how we think about it. In most cases, regardless of how much we actually have—we only have enough when we think we have enough. [Read more…]

A Tale of Two Colonoscopies

By Kathy Gottberg
Filed under: Meaningful, Rightsized, Thankful

Happy SMART Day Everyone!

“It was the best of times, it was the worst of times…” so begins Charles Dickens classic novel, “A Tale of Two Cities.” But that statement and the major themes of the story apply to most of the experiences of every person on the planet on a regular basis. Do we allow the tragedy, inequity and oppression of life’s circumstances to beat us down—or like some characters in the book, do we reach for resurrection and transformation? Even situations as routine or pedestrian as a colonoscopy offer us each of us a similar choice. It’s SMART to always remember that decision is up to us. [Read more…]

In Defense of “Happy Holidays” for One & All!

By Kathy Gottberg
Filed under: Aware, Meaningful, Thankful

Happy Holidays everyone! For those of us who are aware of the abundance of holiday celebrations that occur during December around the world, it’s easy and SMART to admit how appropriate that greeting is for us all. It means no disrespect to anyone, and instead acknowledges that different people experience different ways to find meaning in their world. In fact, even if you have a favorite way to celebrate, acknowledging with love, kindness and compassion the diversity among us, just might be the most spiritual and enlightened way to celebrate and enjoy the season. [Read more…]

SMART Living 365 Recommends You Stay Grateful By Visiting Gratefulness.org

By Kathy Gottberg
Filed under: Thankful

Happy SMART Day Everyone!

One of the core elements of living SMART 365 is practicing a thankful awareness on a daily basis. That’s why this week we are recommending Gratefulness.org. This website offers several touching and free ways to practice gratitude as well as education and support for anyone who wants to use gratitude as a regular spiritual practice. Just one of the goals of the website and organization is “to promote public awareness of gratefulness as a power for change in areas such as ecology, religious tolerance and intergenerational respect.” Surely, such a focus on gratitude can benefit each and every one of us every single day. [Read more…]

Three Simple Ways to Practice Thanksgiving 365

By Kathy Gottberg
Filed under: Aware, Meaningful, Thankful

One of the shortest and sweetest paths to a happy and fulfilled life is the daily practice of giving thanks. From one perspective, no other single spiritual practice is more universally accepted than the idea of being consistently grateful. Not only is gratitude a fundamental element in most spiritual traditions, it is also an ongoing, reoccurring theme in most self-help, inspirational and motivationally focused books on the market. Even science is jumping on the bandwagon and has begun to study the practice of gratitude as a way to increase the health and quality of a person’s life on many levels. Simply put, being thankful 365 is the most important activity anyone can practice, at any stage of life, to create a happy, healthy and contented life.

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SMART Living 365 Recommends Your Local Public Library—For Free!

By Kathy Gottberg
Filed under: Meaningful, Sustainable, Thankful

Happy SMART Day Everyone!

During the last couple of months SMART Living 365 has made it a habit to recommend a website or resource that brings richness to our lives. Most of our recommendations have been online businesses or charities—but today’s recommendation is something many people (at least those that live in the US) take for granted. And while some of our readers are international, and not every US citizen lives in an area with a large library system, we still want to point out the amazing benefits many of us can regularly use to increase the quality of our lives—and it’s mostly free! That resource is your local public library.

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Who/What Are You Listening To Today?

By Kathy Gottberg
Filed under: Aware, Sustainable, Thankful

How many times have you seen a movie or listened to a story where a person has an angel on one shoulder and a little devil on the other? This example is classic because it’s universal to us all. At any given time, on any given day, we have either the voice of our higher more compassionate self who is whispering in our ear—or we have that part of us that is most selfish, small-minded and paranoid sitting on the other. The image of two little selves fighting for our attention is one that is graphically easy to remember. Which do you listen to the most?

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Freecycle.org—The SMART Living 365 Recommended Website for 11/7/11

By Kathy Gottberg
Filed under: Sustainable, Thankful

Happy SMART Day Everyone!

This week is “National Recycling Week” in Australia and in honor of that we thought that it would be great to recommend a website named Freecycle.org. After all, it is good to know that other parts of the planet are encouraging SMART Living just like us, and Freecycle is a excellent way to turn your junk into someone else’s treasure. Instead of throwing it in the trash, Freecycle allows you to post your items, and anyone who wants or needs it can come and pick it up for free. Not only does it keep trash out of our landfills, you get the added benefit of being both giving and generous with your neighbors—and that is very SMART indeed.

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SMART Website for 10/24/11–Be Selfish, Be Generous–See Charity Focus.org

By Kathy Gottberg
Filed under: Meaningful, Sustainable, Thankful

Happy SMART Day Everyone!

This week SMART Living 365 recommends two websites connected to each other. The first is CharityFocus.org—which encourages us to be “selfish” by being generous and kind to one another. The second sister-site is KarmaTube.org, which is a collection of inspiring videos accompanied by simple actions that everyone can take. These two sites run fully by volunteers, each attempt to put the statement made by Gandhi into practice when he said, “Be the change you want to see in the world.”

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