Lately, like many of my generation, I’ve been having to watch my health. Things that didn’t faze me ten years ago, now sometimes wear me out.
I noticed this tendency with both resignation and recognition. I’m approaching 70. I still have a lot of work to do with the Medicine Woman tradition. But I’m learning that the days of being able to make a long drive, hold a circle all day, then drive home again… those days may be numbered.

Perhaps, just maybe, I may need to build in less movement and more rest. 
There are also stressors in my personal life. My grown son returned home due to COVID. My stepmother and my mother are both aging simultaneously. The effort to see that they are each get the support and care they need consumes my energy. Those long walks I used to enjoy are more of a luxury these days than I care to admit. 

My blood pressure sometimes goes up. I am stressed, which depletes the immune system. Though it’s true my spiritual work and practice sustain me and increase my resilience, there is another thing which helps me, too.
A gratitude practice.

You’ll recall that I’ve spoken about gratitude in the past. An attitude of gratitude goes a long way toward curing a whole lot of what ails you.

And while the priestess in me understand that what we focus on grows, and that a gratitude journal creates more Good in our lives, science agrees that its effects are both dramatic and lasting.

Here are some of the good effects of a gratitude practice when its’ used every day.

• Lower blood pressure
• Improved immune function
• Better sleep patterns
• Reduces lifetime risk of depression
• Reduces anxiety
• Reduces substance abuse disorders
• Improves resililency
• Decreases suicides
• Gratitude also helps us choose behaviors that benefit our lives.

When we practice gratitude, we tend to

• Exercise more
• Eat better
• Smoke/Drink Less
• Take better care of ourselves

Overall, we live happier and healthier with an active practice of gratitude.

What I have learned is that gratitude isn’t just for Thanksgiving. Gratitude helps me celebrate the present moment. Live isn’t something that just passes me by, but it’s something that I can appreciate. Gratitude helps me appreciate my friends and family. It brings new opportunities to shop up fully in my practice. It focuses me on the positives in any situation. Gratitude helps my heart.

One scientist, Robert Emmons, says that ““Gratitude blocks toxic emotions, such as envy, resentment, regret and depression, which can destroy our happiness.” 
Spiritual women know that toxicity is the enemy of our hearts and health. Other physical benefits of expressing gratitude include

• Increased good cholesterol and decreased bad cholesterol
• Reduced cortisol
• Lower blood pressure at rest and under stress
• A state of harmony in the nervous system and heart rate
• Mental clarity
• Improved kidney function
• Decreased cardiac inflammation and heart disease

Here are 4 ways to establish a simple, successful gratitude practice that can help you protect your mental, emotional and physical health.

1. Recognize what you’re grateful for, acknowledge it, and appreciate it
2. Start a daily gratitude journal and count your blessings
3. Set aside time daily to recall moments of gratitude
4. Write letters of gratitude and feel more optimistic
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This year, our second Thanksgiving since COVID changed the way we relate with others, may be difficult for some. I hope that you will join me in honoring the goodness in life with a simple gratitude practice that will help us find the light in the dark days ahead.
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Happy Thanksgiving! 
With gratitude, 
Susan

​We all have a voice within that can guide us through life's challenges. It is our inner voice and we need to listen to it more often than we do. This article will explore the ways in which you can connect with your Spirit Within, as well as how you can use this connection to overcome any obstacle or problem that arises in your life.

Connecting with your inner voice, the Spirit within, can occur in several ways. First, you will need to quiet your mind and remove all distractions. By focusing on being present in the moment, we can tune into that inner voice within us that is a great source of wisdom and guidance. When our minds are cluttered with thoughts from yesterday or tomorrow, it becomes difficult for us to tap into this wellspring of knowledge inside ourselves.

Next, you can connect with your inner voice by paying attention to the messages that are being sent through our thoughts and emotions. If we learn how to work with thoughts and emotions as guidance tools, we remain in control of our responses. Thus, it becomes possible to make positive decisions in life, even in difficult situations.
Consider ways that connection with the Spirit within can offer guidance when you need to meet or overcome any obstacle or problem that arises in your life. You can use connection with Spirit as a source for both guidance and positive action when needed most.

Connecting with this higher power within ourselves offers many benefits at a time when those of us working with unity consciousness are meeting more challenges than ever before.

About this time in 2019, six months before COVID changed our world, I sat alone in an airport, clearing my mind and thoughts for the long journey ahead. In the waiting area, another women - also retirement aged - and I struck up a friendly conversation. She was also from Georgia, born and raised in Marietta. Both of us were close to our Daddys. Both reared in church families, communities. We had a lot in common. And there we were, in the same airport, booked on the same through flight to Glasgow, to visit the sacred sites of Scotland.
"Iona," she shared excitedly. "We're going to study ancient Christianity."

My life experiences as a priestess and a strong inner connection to Spirit had given me a deeper sense of what lay ahead in Scotland. "I'm also going to Iona," I offered. "We're going to study the times before Christianity."
She looks at me without speaking. Then quickly moves away and joins her group. When the time came to board the flight, I waved to wish her well. She acted as though the two of us had never met.

I'm not sharing this story because my feelings were hurt or because I am against religion. But because this exchange underscored my own belief that faith and Spirit and connection to the divine has very little to do with man-made doctrine.

Back in the 1970s, I gifted my devoutly Christian, Methodist minister father with a copy of National Geographic's "Great Religions of the World." That was about the same time that I was 1 of 40 chosen to be part of the United Nations delegation of the South Georgia Conference Youth Council. There, I learned about the ways other people engage with Spirit, through Buddhism or Hinduism, and other faiths. There is no doubt that it is from my father that I learned the power of an open mind and listening heart.

My listening heart and the voice within would point me in the direction of nature and the elements as my preferred way to connect directly with Spirit. In nature, I'm not distracted by other people's agendas or dogmas. Outside man-made doctrines, there is divine order, not rules, regulations, politics. Just the land and its elements where everything is interconnected with Spirit.

Back then in that airport lounge waiting to board our flight to Glasgow, my new friend was still caught up on the old ways of thinking about God and faith. And I, in exploring the old ways, came home with my connection to the Divine strengthened and renewed.
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When you listen to the voice of Spirit that dwells within, what message does it have for you?