Gratitude. A pre-Thanksgiving kick in the ass.

As the days are darker and shorter, so are my thoughts. They are gloomy, often clipped complaints about the status of the physical world around me. Cold hurts. My house is messy. My child is whiny. I feel blah.
I hear it out in the world too, these same crabby reflections from tired and over-bundled bodies. It is hard not to fall into that dialogue of constant negative judgment.

I am about 2 weeks away from running the Las Vegas marathon. Because I have run one marathon and several triathlons, I know that training the body is nothing. Easy. Anyone can do it.

Training the mind, trusting your mind is everything. Training this time has been a reminder that what the mind says, the body follows. When I am out there, especially the day that I ran 24 miles in a steady rain, I felt despair when my mind let me think of despair. I felt elation when my mind decided that there was nothing wrong; yes, I was uncomfortable, but is that really something wrong? Was I not going to be warm and resting soon?

I have been using this training tool to refocus my day-to-day thinking. My complaints and discomfort are fleeting and can be easily changed. This is not the case for millions of people who are sick, afraid and really despairing. If I ever become one of these people, I will be ashamed of how I wasted my good days with made-up complaints.

Living in gratitude is living prayer.