I must be very optimistic. I still rejoice in the beauty and miracle of nature every day. For example, the cherry tree on our side yard has so many hard shelled flower buds on its branches under below freezing weather. Those buds were formed before the tree shed its leaves. I dream of spring with the flower buds.

Although I doubt that it is a creative way, I use meditation and journaling as tools to enter in a witness state so that I can see a whole picture clearly without being emotionally involved. In this state of mind, I can watch myself just as if I would be someone else.

I’m most generous when I feel grateful while I’m least generous when I’m taken over by fear and self-pity. To bring forth my most generous self, I’ll continue gratitude practice and surround myself with generous people since generosity seems to be contagious.

I’m thankful for my family & friends, and strangers who crossed my path giving me words of encouragement I needed most at the time.

My past experiences in trying to improve things, and ending up making them worse. I realized that there were so many things that I have no control of and the only thing I could do is just to accept them as they are.

Walking alone in silence, prayer, and meditation help me to find solace, insight, and sources of truth.

Although I’m still healthy and physically fit, it is becoming clearer year by year that I can’t reverse ageing. Accepting myself accomplishing less than previous years has been hard and depressing for me. Once I accept this fact will stay with me until I leave the Earth, I realize that I need to shed so many things, desires, and plans to focus on what matters most in life while I’m living a creative life.

I’d like to celebrate the newly found friendship with old highschool friends. They live over 60,000 miles away from me. However, somehow the pandemic did draw us closer.

Being an introvert, my natural energy resource is recharged when I’m alone. Yet I belong to a handful of communities that inspire me. This Gratefulness.org is one of them. I belong to a local church and several groups formed for particular volunteering purposes. I give my time as well as financial support. I’m grateful that I have the communities I belong to.

I had underestimated my husband, who has been showing the amazing resilience during the pandemic. This taught me that we human beings have the ability to change ourselves.

I’m so grateful that I have everything I need in abundance despite some downsizing during the pandemic such as from two cars to one car.

Practicing meditation and reflecting on Daily Question here definitely helps to zero in on who I am and what I am called for. At the same time I know how good I am at not being honest with myself. So, I talk to a few of my friends who are trustworthy, kind, and open-minded to get different viewpoints.

After being out of commission for a few days due to migraines, I feel I’m ready to care for others. I’ll reach out a friend today, whose younger brother died by suicide in 10 months ago.

I am grateful for the questions that help me open my eyes to the blindsighted matters due to the lack of my awareness, force me to dig deeper, and/or nourish my soul with hope for the future.

Faint hope given by my doctor just enough to live one day at a time, led to another hope given by my family, then to another by my friends. Eventually I was able to look forward to something in the future.

Many moons ago, living with severe migraines as a mother of a toddler taught me many things. The most important thing I learned was “to surrender to God,” which allowed me to accept help from my husband and friends.

I was going to answer “my parents.” Then I remember that I found God’s love in kind words and actions by strangers and those who I barely knew their names when I was at the lowest point of my life. I’d like to say that I’m trying to carry God’s love with me though it is far from perfect.

What a creative way your approach is!

I can relate to your reflection. For the past several years, I was always late in setting up an Advent wreath & Nativity scene. This year I did it on time since I wanted to “borrow Hope from Christmas story” (-Kathy Escobar).