It’s Sunday. Historically I haven’t worked out on Sunday but I’m doing my darndest to get 20 minutes a day in….It’s been a long week at our house - fatigue seeps in and then the brain starts thinking. We have to be very intentional about positivity even if it means reframing. I am fortunate that my parents were generally optimistic positive people. They saw options within situations to continue moving forward.
Being positive doesn’t mean adopting a Pollyanna sight toward life. Instead, counting your blessings is an invitation to overtly identify positive aspects of your life right now. The positive sits alongside the negative and in this way we can acknowledge what we sometimes refer to as the light at the end of the tunnel. Difficulties, challenges, and ambiguity can simultaneously exist alongside being blessed, there are positive things about life to acknowledge. I think this capacity to count one’s blessings is the space where hope resides. All is not lost, we don’t have to drown in our feelings but can muster a new view.
Johnson Oatman in 1897 penned the song Count Your Blessings. It’s one of many heart songs that I grew up with in the church. Often sung, by Betty Brandon, our pastor’s wife, I can still hear her beautiful voice. This song taught me to consider the both/and within a day and adopt an assumption that every day is filled with blessings to count. In this way, this song represents an orientation towards life.
On this wellness journey, it’s all about rooting around and considering how I orient myself toward life and those patterns of thought influencing me in ways I don’t always know. Today is about overtly identifying the blessings.
Song: Count Your Blessings, Johnson Oatman, 1897