Some Kind Of Magic

Back in September, before I took my month-long sabbatical, I thought I had a fairly good idea of what a regular gratitude practice looked like. In fact, I had spent the better part of 4 years keeping a gratitude journal based on the book Make Miracles In Forty Days* by Melody Beattie. I made daily lists, worked hard to find the good in situations that truly challenged me, and even ran several group programs called Project: Miracles to help others do the same. Suffice it to say, I saw how helpful gratitude had been in my life and was a believer in the process. I'm sure I could have lived happily enough with that knowledge for the rest of my days on this earth. But something happened during my sabbatical that completely cracked me open and took me to a deeper and more profound understanding of gratitude and how it works. Perhaps it was the extreme lows of that first week off or the way in which Pam Grout captured my attention in Thank & Grow Rich*. Whatever the case may be, it was as if gratitude went from