You have undoubtedly seen all the emails that promoted my webinar about how to create this heart book.  I’ve been very excited to share the process of how to make it and start an on-line teaching series on book art.  The webinar is a kick-off, and soon the full on-line class will be available.  I worked like crazy last month and through the weekend to get everything ready.

Then Life slapped me in the face on Tuesday.  It was a relatively small slap, but it definitely woke me up.

My computer crashed.  The hard drive is toast.

my computer crashed

I do have a backup.  But it’s from last Thursday.  (I did backups up the way a person does when they don’t believe it would ever happen to them.  You can bet I’ll be backing up daily from now on–every five minutes, maybe!).

With my hard drive went four days of work, emails, etc.  Oh, and the crash happened less than 24 hours before the webinar, taking with it all the videos, photos and work I had done over the weekend.

It was strangely surreal because I was amazingly calm.  Even with the webinar looming, I had a deep sense that somehow it was all going to work out just fine.  My brain was saying “You should be more upset about this.  You should be freaking out!”  Yet, that wasn’t really happening.

I credit GRATITUDE for that.  Since creating the Art of Gratitude course, I’ve developed a new framework for facing hardship.  My brain was on autopilot, thinking of what I had to be grateful for–that I have a back up, that this is relatively minor compared to the “slap in the face” that life has given other people (car accidents, etc.), that I have a network of people who can help me, that the people viewing the webinar are going to be forgiving.  I could go on and on.

Gratitude seems like such a simple thing, but it is unbelievably powerful!  I suggest you try it throughout your day today.  Each time a little Crappy Thing happens, try putting a grateful spin on it.  Can you do that?

What do you think?