Our bodies are a vast landscape of truth and opportunity in every single moment. We can experience injury or illness in one part of the body and well-being in the rest. One day we have health, the next we are sick or hurting. We may wrestle with acute or chronic illnesses, addictions, and/or the varied transitions of aging. Every day we grow older. All these experiences can be like teachers taking us through a course for which we cannot remember ever signing up – and we often feel ill-equipped to cope! Indeed the terrain of the body offers us infinite opportunities to evolve and awaken.

Grateful Living is beautifully suited to “befriending” the body, and helping us to remember that, as Jon Kabat-Zinn says, “as long as you are breathing, there is more right with your body than wrong with it.” Healing is not the same as “curing.” Grateful living brings many distinctions to the exploration of “being with” what is. And, practices can help us focus our attention on that which serves us, all that is intact, and remind us that we are alive – and that life is an unconditional gift.