How to Love Your Life, Whatever the Circumstances

Janis Hunt Johnson
4 min readApr 1, 2023
Gian Cescon — Unsplash

Practice radical gratitude.

Is depression rearing its ugly head again? Is worrying a habit you’d like to break?

When trying your favorite prayers feels empty, if counting your blessings feels trite — it’s time for radical gratitude.

When you want to avoid the specter of avalanching toward panic, it’s time to hold onto something bigger than yourself.

During your normal routines, put into place a daily practice that will serve to bolster your awareness, your calmness, and your confidence. It may feel weird at first. Even silly. But the more you do it, the easier it will get. And the better and stronger you’ll feel.

Be amazed.

Radical gratitude is an attitude of childlike curiosity and awareness that goes something like this:

It’s morning. I am awake. I am alive. I am blessed with this bed and these covers, in this refuge I call my home. I am here to live another day. The sun is replenishing the earth with nourishing light. Oh, I have to pee. What an amazing thing is urination and defecation — a natural elimination of what my body doesn’t need, keeping me balanced and healthy. In fact, my body is doing countless things all at once right now to keep me alive — my breathing continues, my

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Janis Hunt Johnson
Janis Hunt Johnson

Written by Janis Hunt Johnson

Author, 5 Smooth Stones: Our Power to Heal Without Medicine through the Science of Prayer. Transformational Editor. From Chicago to L.A., now in Pacific NW.