Meister Eckhart  

Gratitude is an extraordinarily powerful daily practice. 

Try this: bring to mind one thing you are truly grateful for.  Breathe into this memory as it comes to mind in full detail.  Now notice the effect on your body.    Done well, gratitude can be a relaxation practice as well as a spiritual practice.    You can even use it in a pinch at work: when stress is rising, take thirty seconds and hit your internal reset button with one gratitude moment.

What are you most grateful for today?

“If the only prayer you ever say in your entire life is thank you, that would be enough.”  —Meister Eckhart  

 Here is another gratitude practice.  This one is especially rich for cultivating aliveness.  Why does this matter?

The more change is unfolding ‘out there’ in the world, the more vital it is to cultivate a solid home base of vitality and aliveness in our own bodies.  Especially as leaders, this practice of internal cultivation can strengthen our resiliency and stamina such that we are able to stay proactive longer – truly in a leadership stance – through periods of pronounced change.

This practice is not about toughness though. It’s about comfort.  Read on.

Do you remember as a kid, ever taking a nap when you could hear family around? Perhaps you were snuggled and warm, and comforted by hearing familiar voices around you.  

As adults, we don’t often get that “nap on the couch” feeling.   Yet, every day, right where we are, we have the ability to open wide the doors of our hearts, and to cultivate that feeling,  when we remember “our place in the family of things.”  (Mary Oliver- see below!)  

Here is the practice:

On rising each morning, greet the great outdoors.  (Yes, actually go outside to do this…!)  Notice temperature, light, sounds, air movement, and the smell of morning.   What do you see?  What do you hear?   What of the natural world can you notice, connect with, and appreciate, on waking each day?

Regardless of weather, there is at least still one thread of beauty.  Open your eyes to that thread.  All of us, no matter our path or our challenges, have a home in the natural world. Sometimes we forget, and lose touch.  Some seasons, or locations, we may like better than others.

Yet, what can you surprise yourself by noticing today, right where you are?

Let your experience each morning, of noticing and appreciating, right where you are, help you both notice and focus on the good,

and open your heart to what is to come.

Wild Geese 

 You do not have to be good. 

You do not have to walk on your knees 

for a hundred miles through the desert, repenting. 

You only have to let the soft animal of your body 

love what it loves. 

Tell me about despair, yours, and I will tell you mine. 

Meanwhile the world goes on. 

Meanwhile the sun and the clear pebbles of the rain 

are moving across the landscapes, 

over the prairies and the deep trees, 

the mountains and the rivers. 

Meanwhile the wild geese, high in the clean blue air, 

are heading home again. 

Whoever you are, no matter how lonely, 

the world offers itself to your imagination, 

calls to you like the wild geese, harsh and exciting–

over and over announcing your place 

in the family of things.

Mary Oliver 

As leaders, whether we know it or not, we are a bit like lighthouses, constantly sending navigation signals out into the night.   Therefore, as a leader, I am at my best when I am aware of, and choosing, the kind of signals I want to send.  Where do I need to pay attention in order to do this?

All of us have an essential choice.  To repeat a quote from my last post (for it is worth repeating!)

 “The single most important decision any of us ever have to make is 
whether or not to believe 
we live in a friendly universe.”   Albert Einstein 

Why is this so essential?    After all, we don’t typically go around asking this question of ourselves or of each other…. “Do you believe in a friendly universe?”    Yet, whether we are conscious of our choice here or not, it is likely influencing untold other choices that we are making.

If I believe the universe is essentially friendly, then I am able to look for the good in others, and to see opportunities, even in the midst of real challenge or significant unknowns.  Physiologically, then I am able to access a relaxed body, and a calm mind.   My sense of humor is readily accessible.

Openness is possible: open breath, open mind, open heart.  In this state, I’m more able to access possibilities.    I’m also far more receptive to what I call “connectivity” – our human ability to create authentic, honest, care-based relationships with other humans, in all spheres of our lives.

On the other hand, if I believe the universe is essentially unfriendly, then I am far more likely to operate from my reptilian brain, the place of protective responses. Fight.  Flight.  Freeze.  Appease.   Don’t get me wrong; these all have their place. We just don’t want these responses to have a hold of our controls on a regular basis!  In any of these states, I am reacting against a stimulus, vs. living in conscious choice.   In all of them, my connectivity is way down. 

So then, what does gratitude have to do with leadership?

Overlay leadership into the equation above.   Quality leadership, at is core, creates healthy meaning from this often confusing experience we call life.   Leadership helps sculpt focus towards what matters most, and generates ongoing, forward engagement in life-giving possibilities.  And fundamentally, great leadership is based on high connectivity. 

Therefore, if we want to lead, and lead well, whatever the sphere, then being in regular practices that help us experience the universe as friendly strengthens our leadership capacity.

Why regular?

 Our experiences in life are like waves on the ocean; sometimes they are soft and gentle, and it is easy to believe in a friendly universe.   Other times the water gets a bit rougher, and sometimes there are true challenges that test our faith.   Yet, if we are in regular practices that keep us focused on what is good in our world, then even when life gets challenging,  this lens is available to us.  This helps us stay relaxed and supple, and able to access our best, right when we need it most.

 This is where gratitude comes in.  We are what we practice.  Gratitude is a practice that shapes us to pay attention and seek out what is good, what is life giving, what is possible.

What am I grateful for today?

I am grateful for those in my life, who, like well-polished lighthouses, keep themselves “clean and bright,” and send out perfect beams of light into the night, through all kinds of seas.

What are you grateful for today?

Pay attention. This way, when clear, strong signals from the lighthouse are most needed, you will able to shine through!

“The single most important decision any of us ever have to make

is whether or not to believe 


we live in a friendly universe.”

Albert Einstein 

If you need help deciding, then….

Periodically, count all your blessings.  A good friend who devotes much of her life to caring for her beloved yet disabled husband painted this picture for me: she was driving home from friends’, about 45 minutes from Sandpoint, and realized she needed to lift her own spirits, given the suffering she witnesses around her, both at home and work.  

She started counting her blessings, and when she got to town, 45 minutes later, she was still counting!     How many of us can say this?    This friend radiates joy, even though most of us would consider her lot in life quite challenging on many fronts.

With many us of us adjusting to new levels of change and challenge, we might pull a page from the playbook of friends like Judith, who have faced extraordinary challenge for a long time.

It’s a whole new take: counting all our blessings can carry us into whole new terrain – with healthy doses of grace and gratitude.  Some blessings catch us by surprise, and we may take a moment to see them as such, while others unfold with the rhythm of the sun.  Yet we can count them all.

So..when you count all your blessings,  how high can you count?