In November of 2007, my mother passed away after a gracious and awe-inspiring nine year battle with breast cancer.  The pain of her loss is still intense, but I have found that it's very helpful to focus on the things I am grateful for. So for me, gratitude is now a coping mechanism and that's new.


Besides short posts about gratitude and happiness, I hope to share some of my insights about personal development.  I'll share with you some ways to be active in your gratitude. I am aolso providing links to organizations I support in their efforts to fight cancer.  You can learn more about these organizations or join the cause. 


To fund the site, I may also recommend products and services that have been useful to me. If a link to a site appears on any pages of www.newgratitude.com, I have personally found the site and its products or services helpful. I hope you will visit these sites and I would be delighted to hear from you if you discover something new that makes your life better in some way.

Lemon Pie


Mom and I used to talk, sometimes for hours, about all kinds of things.  Philosophical conversations were not out of the ordinary; we joked that we had solved the world's problems many times over.  In her last months, we had a lot of happy times, and we talked about the concept of happiness.  We both believed that no matter what circumstances occur in your life, you can make a choice to be happy.  In fact, if you don't make a decision to be happy and make choices that support your own happiness, you cannot be happy, no matter how much wealth or positive circumstances flow into your life.  The old saying is "When life hands you lemons, make lemonade."  I said this to Mom once and she quipped "I like lemon pie better."  So don't just make lemonade, make lemon pie, or any other lemon dessert you love!


Today I'm grateful for the legacy my mother left me...her intelligence and eagerness to learn new things and be well-informed
her wonderful sense of humor and comedic timing
her flair for fashion and color sense
her desire to make other people's lives easier, sometimes at the cost of her own comfort


What are you grateful for today?



Active Gratitude

Gratitude is something of a buzzword these days; everyone's talking about it.  But while we all understand feeling gratitude and we may also speak it aloud, we rarely do much more than that to demonstrate our gratitude.  I believe that when something or someone is very meaningful to you, your actions can speak louder than your words.  This "active" gratitude might be seen in the young man who lovingly polishes his new sports car or in the way newlyweds treat each other. 

Some of my Mom's coworkers recently held a charity luncheon in her honor.  They raised almost $1000 for cancer charities.  This is another excellent example of active gratitude.  They were thankful for the time they had with her and for the way she enriched their lives and they showed it by honoring her with this tribute. 

Thinking about the things you are most grateful for in your life, would your gratitude be apparent to people who observe you?  Do the people who know you well know what you are most thankful for by the way you live your life?  Are you willing to make big or small sacrifices for the things and people who matter most to you?  If you were to put your gratitude into action, what would it look like?