Attitude for Gratitude

I have to be honest...lately I've been complaining too much. All things from how bad my body aches (from volleyball training and competition), how sh**y I think the weather is, how much stress there is to prepare for things that HAVEN'T EVEN HAPPENED YET, how terrible that Belgian driver is in front of me, and many other petty things...

There is an amount of comfort in complaining about things that bother us, or just plain b****ing. It acts as a moment of "release", if you will. However, when we allow ourselves to repeat this habit, it often filters through every aspect of our lives. All of sudden we have problems with everything around us that didn't exist before. Why? Because we have conditioned our thinking and energy to feed negativity.

Of course we all face bad days and low emotions, but there comes a time when we have the power to choose our thoughts and act positively. I have recently noticed that I am not myself. Normally I am a very happy-go-lucky, optimistic, energized person to be around...but I've lost some of my flame. While I've been overseas, I've fallen into a constant state of exhaustion, worry, stress, and complaint. If it's not an issue with my coach's lack of strategy, or something someone says that sets me off, than it's going to be something else I pick!! Wtf Katrina?! My old self would totally say, "Get over it. It's not worth your time and energy to stress over this." While I know this is what I would say a year ago, I can't seem to shake exactly why I'm like this.

Our thoughts feed our energy - our energy feeds our words - our words feed our actions...

Lord help us if our negative thinking spins around to bite us in the ass when we ATTRACT what we think. For some, this is no unfamiliar concept:

Thoughts become Things

For face-value it seems completely made up. A gimmick or sick scheme to sell some "get rich quick" novel? No. If there's one thing all of mankind can agree on, it's that we DO NOT know everything about the human brain. Our brains are as mysterious as Earth's oceans - full of unknown discoveries.

I have two examples of how our thoughts attract things from this past week.

#1 - I had a day where I was really focused on my financial situation, and was thinking to myself, "I wish I had a little extra cash right now." Not that I necessarily needed any extra money, but I just thought hey, wouldn't that be cool (haha don't we all sometimes?). Low and behold, later that evening I found cash. I was cleaning up a shelf of mine and organizing things in my room, when 50 euros lay sneakily folded inside a sunglasses case of mine. Cha-Ching!! Okay, I wasn't winning the jackpot or anything flashy like that, but I had to laugh.

#2 - Driving in the car late at night when you're feeling emotional isn't always the safest thing to do. I was having an entire day of reflection on a certain very important decision I would need to make in about 6 months time. My headaches were morbid, and I felt completely torn between two choices. Even having discussions with my best friends about it didn't give any clarity to me - I was lost and stressed over what to do. I decided to turn on the radio and just listen to some music in efforts to calm me down...(now, you must know that ELDO radio in Luxembourg has about 10 songs they like to shuffle between EVERY day until you absolutely loathe each one). But...wait a minute...THIS song...no way...I've NEVER heard them play this song before.

It was "Castle of Glass" by Linkin Park. Coincidence maybe? I think not. This particular song holds great importance to me because it's the song I listened to hundreds of times when I was working through a tough time several years ago. Without saying too much, the song was directly connected to one of the choices I could make in 6 months time. I'm not always the one to cry out, "Please universe, give me a sign!" But I can't ignore how perfect that moment was. It felt like 3 minutes and 25 seconds of complete bliss. Like the world stopped around me to say, "Hey, just breathe. Everything is going to be okay. This is what you need to do." The song faded out, and ELDO radio continued along playing it's normal top 10 playlist - like that song wasn't even meant to be played.

Get one thing straight - I'm not saying this works every time, and it's not as simple as thinking, "I wish I was a millionaire and had a fancy car" and then getting it the next day. You're missing the point...

The point is, when we think something and we put all our energy into that thought...the universe will respond. Go ahead, try it! Reap the benefits!

Just be careful what energy you put out there ;)