“The Sabbath is a day of reflection, gratitude and thanksgiving. Reflect on the past week. Give thanks for the perfection of each day, of the good deeds done, the miracles seen and experienced, for the love I’ve felt and all I’ve accomplished because of God’s grace.”
Laura Lane from ‘I Touch the Heavens’
This week I watched a podcast interview with Dr Daniel G. Amen., psychiatrist and brain disorder specialist New York Times Bestselling author of Change Your Brain, Change Your Life. In this interview he was talking about the importance of setting intentions for the day.
He said, “Whenever you wake up in the morning, say ‘Today is going to be a great day. You have to nudge your brain. We have a conscious mind. We have an unconscious mind. We have a self image. Your subconscious mind is paying attention to the words that the conscious mind is saying.
So if you’re like ‘Oh, I don’t want to get out of bed, today is going to be a bad day.’ You’re going to have a bad day because you just programmed your subconscious mind to do that.
Everyday when my feet hit the floor, today is going to be a great day. And then my favourite of all of them is when you go to bed at night. And bed is so important because, if you want to have a good day, it starts the night before, is what went well today?
So when I go to bed, I say a prayer and then I go ‘What went well?’ And I go on a treasure hunt because I’m purposefully looking for what are the right things that happened. And I look for the micro moments, like what’s the smallest thing? I just focus on them. And I’ve been doing this for years , and it’s so helpful”
I think this is an amazing process that can be used in so many ways. Daily, yes I definitely want to incorporate this into my morning and evening prayers.
But what if we did the same thing every Sunday? We can review the week and notice everything that has gone right, the little things that we count as special blessings, little miracles. Then pray about what our intentions are for the week. It could be done while sitting in church or this is something we could do as couples or as a family over Sunday dinner together.
We could do the same thing every month and at the end of every year. As we do it over longer periods of time we see the accumulated effect of our blessings.
Last month, my business coach had me list everything I accomplished over the last year. It really was an amazing year. I feel so much more grateful after that review. Before she made me do it I was focussed on how tired I was and how little I had accomplished that particular week when I was sick.
The end of the year is always a good time to reflect on the year and of course everyone talks about “What’s your new year’s resolution?” and then promptly complain that each year they never make it past a couple of days or weeks with this new ‘resolution’.
What if our focus was instead to resolve? Resolution comes from the English word ‘resolve’ which as a noun means determination. But if we focus on resolve the verb, it comes from the Latin resolvere “to loosen, loose, unyoke, undo; explain; relax; set free; make void, dispel.”
What could you let go of in the new year? What negativity has been holding you back? In what ways could you relax more? What stress do you need to be free from? What darkness is enveloping you that you need dispelled?
What if your resolution wasn’t to lose 20 lbs, drink less, or work out more but instead focus on the good and beautiful things in your life and look for more moments of beauty and kindness and tiny miracles instead?
I would invite you to review your day, your week, month and year with the goal to find all the goodness in your life, to see the miracles, to embrace beautiful moments and set the intention that you are going to have a great day, a great week ahead, a great month and a great year!
“When I come to the Sabbath, I can acknowledge the week and pronounce it as good, then rededicate the next week’s work to the Lord and ask Him for His love and grace (His help) to accomplish all that He and I desire. ”
Laura Lane from ‘I Touch the Heavens’