Welcome, everyone. I’m so grateful you’re here for the Tuesday Talks at 10:30 recap. This is a moment in time created several years ago. It is meant to be a safe space to explore your spiritual path. We touch upon many subjects, from grief to connecting to spirit and our higher selves, stone energy, and so much more. We talk about how to come back home to ourselves when we feel that we’ve gotten off track. But this is that place where you can sit without judgment, without fixing, and just have the ability to say, “Hmm, I wonder, I wonder if, I wonder why, maybe someone else is experiencing the same types of things that I am. Guess what? I’m not crazy. Reading this blog tells me that you have arrived at the exact moment you were meant to be here.
Welcome back, all returning connection tribe, and if this is your 1st time here, welcome to the connecting family. I am so glad you found us. I welcome you all in with open arms.
I’m a Spiritual Healer, Author, Retreat Facilitator, Keynote Speaker, and Evidential Medium, Stacey Niedentohl. I wear many spiritual hats, and my passion is to meet you where you are in your journey of healing and growing. I want you to know there is no judgment, no fixing; you are not broken. Whether you are on a healing journey, or a spiritual journey, or just curious, and you are just wanting to know the what ifs, the whys, and the how comes, you are amongst friends.
I’m sorry I missed going live last week, I was traveling, but I hope the blog was insightful for you in closing out October. If there is one thing I hope you’ve taken away from this journey, it is this: You are not broken. You never were.
Happy November. New month, new topics to dig into. This month we will be exploring: Gratitude and spiritual reflection. Themed around thankfulness, wisdom, surrender, focus, gratitude rituals, higher perspective, energies letting go introspective. November is always a beautiful month to dig into this because it naturally follows the energy of slowing down, reflecting and preparing for a new season.
I’d like to begin with a question:
Have you ever noticed how two people can walk through the exact same day and experience it completely differently? One person sees inconvenience, frustration, and disappointment. While, the other sees lessons, opportunities, unexpected gifts, and moments of beauty. Nothing about the external circumstances changed. Only their way of seeing changed. And I believe that’s what gratitude really is. Not saying “thank you” after receiving something wonderful. But developing the ability to recognize the wonder that’s already present.
There is an ancient spiritual truth found across many traditions: what we pay attention to becomes our reality. Not because we magically create circumstances through our thoughts. But because attention shapes the experience. We don’t see the world as it is. We see the world as we are.
Gratitude as a Form of Awakening
What do you think about when you hear the word gratitude? Most hear it and think of manners. Being polite, appreciative and saying thank you. But gratitude is much deeper than that. At its heart, gratitude is an awakening. It is moving from unconscious living to conscious living.
We tend to spend our lives focused on what is next. The next goal. The next achievement. The next problem to solve. The next thing that must happen before we can finally feel content. We become future-focused. And while we’re looking ahead, life quietly unfolds beneath our feet.
We forget to be present because we are thinking 3 steps ahead of where our feet are currently located. Let me explain. Think about the conversation we barely listened to. The meal we rushed through. The sunset we didn’t notice. The friend we assumed would always be there.
Gratitude gently brings us back. It whispers: “Come back. This moment matters.”
The Mystery of Enough
One of the greatest spiritual questions isn’t: “What do I want?” It’s: “When will I feel like I am enough?” Think about that.
How often do we tell ourselves:
I’ll be happy when…
I’ll relax when…
I’ll feel successful when…
I’ll feel secure when…
The finish line moves. The horizon keeps expanding. Ancient wisdom traditions have long suggested that suffering often comes from living in perpetual pursuit. Not because goals are bad. But because we believe fulfillment exists somewhere other than where we stand. The finish line moves because we move it.
Gratitude Interrupts this Illusion.
It invites us to ask:
What if this moment contains more than I’ve realized? What if abundance isn’t the presence of everything I want? What if abundance is recognizing the richness of what already exists?
Why We Miss the Extraordinary
The human mind is designed to notice problems. This helped our ancestors survive. We naturally scan for danger, scarcity, and what needs fixing. Unfortunately, this means we often become blind to blessings. Psychologists call this the negativity bias.
Spiritual teachers have described it differently for centuries: We become so focused on what is absent that we lose sight of what is present. The breath moving in and out of our body. The body carrying us another day. The people who love us. The opportunities that still remain. The lessons hidden within challenges. None of these are guaranteed. Yet we often treat them as if they are. Gratitude is simply remembering that they aren’t.
Where are You Standing
We spend our lives standing in answered prayers while praying for more answers.
What did I pray for five years ago that I now take for granted?
What blessings have become ordinary because I’ve become accustomed to them?
Am I so focused on the horizon that I’ve forgotten to appreciate the ground beneath my feet?
We stand in the rain complaining that we’re wet, forgetting that just last month we were praying for green grass. We pray for growth, but growth requires change. We pray for wisdom, but wisdom often arrives through challenges. We pray for strength, but strength is developed through resistance. We pray for patience, and then become frustrated when life asks us to wait. We pray for deeper relationships, and then resent the vulnerability required to create them.
The Prayer We Forgot We Prayed
One of the reasons gratitude is difficult is because we forget our former prayers. We get so focused on what we want next that we lose sight of what once felt impossible. At some point, many of us prayed for the things we now overlook. The home. The partner. The children. The friendship. The healing. The opportunity. The freedom. The version of ourselves we have become.
And now those answered prayers have become so normal that we no longer recognize them as miracles.
Standing in Answered Prayers
I wonder how often we stand in answered prayers while asking for new blessings. Because gratitude isn’t thanking God, the Universe, Spirit, or Life for giving you something. It’s recognizing you’ve already received something. It’s awakening to it.
A fish doesn’t notice water because it’s surrounded by it. We don’t notice many blessings because we’re surrounded by them. They’re no longer extraordinary. They’ve become ordinary.
How many seasons of rain have we mislabeled as punishment when they were actually nourishment?
The Hidden Blessing
What in your life feels like rain right now? And what if, instead of asking why it’s happening to you, you asked what it might be growing in you?
Not everything painful is a blessing. Not every hardship has a simple explanation. But many of our greatest gifts become visible only in hindsight. The job we didn’t get. The relationship that ended. The door that closed. The move we never wanted to make.
Years later we often look back and think: If that hadn’t happened, I wouldn’t be here. That’s gratitude with wisdom attached to it. Perhaps gratitude is not simply counting our blessings. Maybe gratitude is recognizing that some blessings arrive as sunshine and some arrive as rain.
The sunshine shows us the beauty. The rain creates it. And wisdom is learning to honor both.
The Spiritual Practice of Wonder
Children possess something adults lose. Want to know what they possess? They are the curators of wonder. A child can spend ten minutes fascinated by a butterfly. Chasing it and giggling. Or staring at a cloud seeing imaginary creatures and the shapes they form. Or when they come upon a puddle, do they walk around it? No, they jump into the puddle. Adults tend to call that immaturity. But many spiritual traditions would call it wisdom. Wonder slows time. Wonder opens perception. Wonder reconnects us with mystery and imagination. And gratitude naturally follows wonder. Because it is difficult to be in a state of wonder and entitlement at the same time.
Wonder says: “I get to experience this.” Entitlement says: “I deserve more.”
Only one of those creates peace.
Looking Back Through Different Eyes
As we begin November, I invite everyone to reflect on this year. Not through the lens of success or failure. Not through the lens of accomplishments. But through the lens of gifts.
Ask yourself:
What did this year teach me? Who entered my life for a reason? What challenge made me stronger? What disappointment redirected me? What struggle revealed something important about myself?
Sometimes gratitude arrives immediately. Sometimes gratitude arrives years later. Many of the things we’re thankful for today once appeared as setbacks. Wisdom often comes wrapped in difficulty.
Gratitude and Energy
Without becoming overly mystical, most of us have experienced the reality that different thoughts create different internal states. When we dwell on resentment, the body feels it. When we live in fear, the body feels it. Gratitude is energy.
When we practice appreciation, the body feels that too. Gratitude shifts our internal atmosphere. Not because it changes reality. But because it changes our relationship with reality. The situation may remain the same. Yet we meet it differently. And that can change the outcome and the feel of everything.
The Rain and Wonder Practice
Children experience rain differently than adults. Adults run from it. Children run into it. Adults see inconvenience. Children see possibility. Adults think about ruined plans. Children think about puddles. The rain itself hasn’t changed. Only the way it’s being perceived. And I “wonder” if gratitude is, in part, recovering our ability to see life with childlike wonder.
I think sometimes we are standing in the rain complaining about being wet while the earth is quietly becoming green beneath our feet. We’ve overlooked what the rain is nourishing.
The Evening Ritual
At the end of each day, sit quietly for a few minutes and ask yourself three questions (of course, get out your handy dandy journal and make note):
1. Where was the rain today? What challenged me? What frustrated me? What felt inconvenient, uncomfortable, or disappointing?
Don’t try to make it positive. Just acknowledge it honestly.
Where was the rain?
2. What might the rain be growing? What lesson might be hidden here? What quality is being strengthened? What perspective am I being invited to develop?
I may not know for certain. But can I become curious rather than resistant? Because gratitude doesn’t always say: “I’m grateful FOR this.”
Sometimes gratitude simply says: “I’m willing to trust there may be something unfolding that I cannot yet see.”
3. What inspired wonder today? This is my favorite question. What made me pause? What beauty almost escaped my notice?
What would a child have pointed at today? The changing leaves? A bird sitting on a wire? A stranger’s kindness? The moon? The smell of coffee? A conversation? A moment of laughter? A beam of sunlight through a window?
Children don’t need extraordinary moments. They notice ordinary moments extraordinarily well. And that’s where wonder lives.
The Beautiful Connection
Perhaps wisdom is realizing that wonder belongs in both the sunshine and the rain. A child doesn’t only marvel at flowers. A child marvels at puddles too.
Gratitude isn’t just appreciating the blessings we recognize. Maybe it’s also trusting the blessings we don’t recognize yet. Pondering the question, “Am I standing in answered prayers while asking for new blessings?” Recognizing that the sunshine reveals the garden. The rain creates it.
Wonder teaches us to appreciate both. A child sees a puddle and discovers a world of wonder. An adult sees a puddle and sees a problem. Gratitude is remembering how to see the world like the child again. And gratitude is what allows us to see them again.
November Rain
As we move through November, I invite you to think of gratitude not as a seasonal practice, but as a spiritual awakening. A way of seeing. A way of remembering. A way of recognizing that we may already be standing in some of the very things we once prayed for. Too often, we spend our lives reaching for the next horizon while missing the sacredness of where we are.
A child understands something many adults forget. A child standing in the rain isn’t worried about muddy shoes. They aren’t thinking about whether their clothes will dry or whether their plans have been interrupted. They are captivated by the puddles, the splashes, the experience of being completely present in the moment.
Somewhere along the way, many of us lose that sense of wonder. We become so focused on avoiding the mud that we miss the joy. Remember the child within you that isn’t thinking about muddy shoes, they are thinking about splashing in the puddles. Not every inconvenience is a problem….that’s where the wonder is found.
So, as you leave today, I invite you to carry these questions with you:
Where am I standing in the rain when I could be noticing the puddles?
Where am I focusing on the inconvenience rather than the invitation?
Where am I missing the wonder because I’m distracted by what isn’t perfect?
Gratitude is not simply counting our blessings. It is learning to see them. To recognize the sacredness hidden in ordinary moments. To trust that some of the rain we resist today may reveal itself as part of the answer tomorrow.
May we rediscover the eyes of a child. May we find wonder in the puddles. And may we discover that some of life’s most beautiful gifts have been right in front of us all along.
Where am I standing in the rain, distracted by the mud, while wonder is waiting in the puddles? The real voyage of discovery consists not in seeking new landscapes, but in having new childlike eyes of wonder.
Thank you for being the one who heals. Thank you for being the one who remembers. Thank you for being here, splashing in the puddles to live the life you love and love the life you live.
I love each and every one of you, and I’ll talk to you next week.
Have a magical day!
Stacey
Interested in scheduling a reading? Go to www.connectingtospiritwithstacey.com and click on the Book a Reading button. Questions while trying to schedule, please email me at connectingtospiritwithstacey@gmail.com
To watch the live, go to YouTube @connectingtospiritwithstac1512 or https://www.facebook.com/share/v/18WuKmEYUv/
