Balancing the Christian Life

Kenny and Candyce delve into the profound impact of gratitude, discussing how it can shape one's daily life, spur personal development, and enrich spiritual practices. They explore how gratitude can turn ordinary moments into extraordinary ones, manage life's unpredictability, and enhance relationships by fostering a deeper sense of appreciation and empathy.

Themes:

• Gratitude and Presence: The significance of being fully engaged in the now, appreciating what is currently available.
• Control and Acceptance: How gratitude helps in accepting what we can't control, leading to a serene life approach.
• Meditation as a Tool: Utilizing meditation to deepen gratitude, connecting oneself more profoundly with the present.
• Spiritual Practices: The role of gratitude in both Buddhist meditation and Christian prayer as a path to spiritual growth.
• Perspective on Challenges: Transforming our approach to life's trials through the lens of gratitude.
• Interconnectedness: The spread of positive energy through gratitude in social interactions.

Quotes:

• Candyce: "In it's being aware of the beautiful and positive things that you have in your life understanding how powerful those things are. Being of the present moment. Gratitude is like the full experience of the present to me. I try to spend at least some time every day just appreciating wherever I'm at, the fact that I woke up, the fact that I'm breathing."
• Kenny: "Yeah, I do know. You're not wrong. We get so upset about things that, number one, are outside of our control. But number two, we have. There's a lot that we have to be thankful for to even have those problems. This morning I got out of a bed. That most people do not sleep in. I live in a country that is not at war. I got to eat some. Really? Okay food, but I got to eat food, period. So, I mean, these are all things that we can be grateful for."
• Candyce: "There's always a point like it's okay to feel, it's not the way that you want it right now. I understand that feeling. But to be grateful for what you have in the moment is really something that can cultivate a lot of energy, if you're thinking about it and drive you to reach some goals that you may want."
• Candyce: "And honestly, being grateful even for the things that maybe we didn't want to go through or didn't want to experience or didn't want. So those led to where you are remember getting it. Getting in a car accident got rear ended and I felt terrible. Woe is me for a second. And then I realized, well, this is just another opportunity. I'll get it fixed. It'll be fine. And here I am. I've got a better car a little bit later, you know, it leads to something else. But I wouldn't have gotten here if that didn't happen."
• Kenny: "How important is happiness? Is it happiness a big deal? Yeah."
• Candyce: "You imagine yourself. So it's like kind of an imagination thing. So you sit and you imagine yourself in a garden of your choosing on a bench and there's a fence and you imagine people walking by that fence. You start out with somebody easy, somebody where it's easy to be grateful for them. And you invite them to sit with you and you tell them you give them a flower and you explain why you're grateful for them and you wish them their best and they move on."
• Candyce: "It's hard to explain and it stems from that gratitude of being present. And that's the foundation for, my Buddhism. I will not say that I am an expert, but this I can definitely speak for my personal practice and my personal experiences."
• Kenny: "Well, one of the things that we talked about this a little bit yesterday is that you you are a

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