What Makes Me Happy Now: Safety of my friends/family and so much more.

This past week more than ever have I been counting my blessings.  Riding the hurricane out on the Jersey shore and seeing the damages it's caused has allowed me to celebrate all that I have to be grateful for.  As I do so, my heart aches for those who have lost their homes, and especially those who lost their lives.  I send them all warmth and love.  

1.  The safety of my friends and family.  A few of my friends lost their places and all that they own this past week in Hurricane Sandy.  I ran into one of them and even though she will probably never be able to go back to her place again or retrieve any of her belongings...she still had a smile on her face and said, "It's just stuff."  That was amazing to me.  

2.  The endless volunteers.  It's a shame that a natural disaster has to show humanity's compassion, but boy has it ever.   People have been sending supplies to the Jersey shore, driving down to help support those in needs.  Yesterday I saw a team of power utility trucks from Alabama.  Amazing!

3.  Power.  After riding the storm out in Neptune, Lammer and I headed up to my apartment in Red Bank mid-week and I was surprised with power late Thursday.  Light and electricity is good and something I shouldn't just take for granted.  

4.  The love and support from friends:  I can't believe the amount of text message "check-ins" I received throughout this week from friends and family all over the world.  Lammer got the same thing.  I also reached out to as many people I could to see how they were.  So much love going back and forth via text/email!

5.  Social networking.  Without it this past week, so many of us would have been in the dark (literally).  Even though phone service was spotty for most of the week, I was still able to connect to Facebook for updates, news and information locally to help get us through the storm.  So thankful for that to link us all together!!!

Back in March of 2012 I decided to do these posts because it's really easy to be suckered into negative thoughts when we're surrounded by stressful media, unhappy people and whining Facebook status updates. My guru, Swami Vishnudevananda says that for every negative thought you have, replace it with 2-3 positive ones. I love this concept and practice it regularly. I usually find the most effective way of climbing out of a negative attitude is to think about something that I'm grateful for. Feelings of gratitude really lift you up. In honor of this concept, I'm starting a post with this same theme and will blog it regularly. I'll list a few things that make me happy, lift me up and keep me smiling! Let's face it, world peace is something that will never happen. However, I can create my own little world of peace and happiness in my mind through my thoughts! Please give it a try as well and share how it affects you.