Blog — Dr. Maria Church Love-Based Leadership Speaker, Motivational Speaker, Best-Selling Author, Organizational Culture Expert

“Gratitude is the portal through which abundance flows.”

Writing and talking about gratitude is one of my favorite topics, as I have written blogs, articles, and chapters about the virtues of thankfulness. Every year, I cannot help but revisit this topic again.

I see tweets and posts with gratitude expressed each day for someone or something in other people’s lives. Woohoo!

How about a SUPER CHALLENGE of finding what we may be grateful for with a challenging individual? In that difficult situation, try to see the spirit in them; or how we might be grateful for the lessons we are learning from that difficult person or situation. If we find it difficult to locate the gratitude with a person or scenario, perhaps forgiveness is an option. Forgiveness is a powerful door to open the flow of gratitude.

You know how much I love to use acronyms, so here goes one for gratitude:

Giving
Receiving
Abundance
Thankfulness
Intention
Together
Unconditionally
Directed
Everyone

When we are in a state of gratitude, we give and receive love and abundance. We are thankful for the intentional way we choose to live our lives. This awareness brings us together to unconditionally direct our love and gratitude to everyone, all of our brothers and sisters.

In a previous episode of Dr. Maria TV, titled, “3 Simple Steps to Abundance” I shared with you three strategies to cultivate gratitude. Another fun activity in which many of my clients participate is posting a gratitude board in a prominent place in the home. This could be a chalkboard or a white board. List anything on the board for which you are grateful, and invite family and friends to participate too. The board serves as a visual reminder each time you pass by it. Writing on the board, and practicing gratitude has become an integral thread in our family.

Another activity to cultivate gratitude in your life is to write a letter a day for one year to different people, indicating why you are grateful for him or her. This activity is beneficial to so many people on numerous levels. Your generosity will move and touch the hearts of all of the people that receive letters from you.

You, too, will receive joy and love in your heart all the while you are writing the letter, shifting your energy to love and gratitude each day while you are thinking about that person and completing the activity.

Finally, what you sow, so shall you reap. Do you have other ideas?

To which gratitude challenge are you willing to commit?

As always, I love to hear from you.

Maria

Irresistible Leader Downloadable Course

Course includes five mp3 audio classes, workbook with action sheets, transcripts, and more.

Join us at http://www.DrMariaChurch.com/drmariatv/ where the discussion continues. While earning my undergraduate degree, I took an art appreciation course. ...

Practicing creativity not only helps leaders make quick, confident decisions, innovate, and problem solve; creativity also helps us interact with others at a higher level. Because creativity is a gift from God, planted in all of us, connecting energetically through creativity goes immediately to our souls. When we experience someone else’s creativity such as music, film, books, or art, we feel something deep down inside. That feeling is our energy of oneness, of our connection.

While earning my undergraduate degree, I took an art appreciation course. During our study of abstract art, the professor had us describe how we felt while looking at each art piece. During the exercise, if any of us would say, “That looks like a ship,” she would mark points off our grade. This was an extremely valuable lesson to learn; she challenged us to use our other senses beyond our eyes, and stay in the creative side of our brain. Our logical side wanted to analyze the picture instead of conceptualizing the possibilities.

I now do this practice anytime I experience art. I stay present and open to the beauty of an opera sung in another language through many senses beyond auditory. The creative energy moves from the actors to my soul, with complete understanding and clarity when I remember the lesson learned in that art appreciation course.

Living in this creative zone is as beneficial for leaders as it is for artists. Observe artists at work, whether it is performing artists, painters, sculptors, writers, or designers. Artists are present in the moment of creating with razor sharp focus as the divine download fills the spaces of their mind, heart, and body.

Pablo Picasso reminds us, “Every child is an artist. The problem is how to remain an artist once he grows up.” The best way to start is do what we did as children—play. I had so much fun picking out crayons and a coloring book as an adult, although I purchased under the pretense of buying it for my niece! Let’s get the creative juices flowing with the abandonment of child-like play. Your play may include painting, drawing, Play Doh, dancing, dress-up, or whatever makes you smile.

Let’s start today and create the world in which we live love.

How do you get your creative juices flowing? I’d love to hear it – comment below!

Love,

Maria

Irresistible Leader Downloadable Course

Course includes five mp3 audio classes, workbook with action sheets, transcripts, and more.