I expect a lot from my body.

I don’t subscribe to common thoughts about aging and decline.

It doesn’t always work the way I’d like, but I’ve experienced some remarkable healings just by changing my thoughts and expectations.

That’s why I was sure I’d be able to improve my eyesight by changing how I thought about it.

But nothing changed that I was aware of, and I still had to wear my glasses for distance.

I was talking to a friend about this, and she said, “Have you been grateful for your glasses?”

That question stopped me short. No, I had never been grateful for glasses. Instead I had always been annoyed by them.

Seriously, what an amazing blessing corrective lenses have been to the world! Life would be really hard without them.

It’s so easy to focus our energies on the thing that hurts or isn’t working and ignore everything that’s going right.

I get it, chronic illness, pain, or limitations of movement can really impact your life in an unpleasant way. I’ve had my own share of chronic pain.

What we focus on magnifies.

Stop looking at what’s not working to your liking, and focus on everything that’s working well.

List all the parts of your body that don’t hurt. Celebrate all the movements you can make. Think how different your life would be if you couldn’t do those things.

Give thanks for all the amazing functions of your body that go on behind the scenes.

Your body takes a peanut butter sandwich and turns it into your cells, bones and muscles! It burns it for fuel. It breaks the proteins down to amino acids and delivers them exactly where they need to be. It takes the vitamins to all the distant parts of you.

Let’s be appreciative of those miracles and give our bodies some credit.

Your body wants to hear from you. It’ll respond to the messages you send it.

Your body was designed to serve you. It wants to please you.

Let it know how happy you are to have its service, even if you hope for improved service in the future.

Your thoughts are an invisible force that travel through and to every cell of your body.

Treat it well in your thought, and it’ll treat you well in return.