I firmly believe it is important to pay attention to the good bits in a day, and acknowledge them. It helps to keep things in perspective and remind us that there are always things to appreciate and be thankful for in our lives,

This is especially true at the moment, when the news just tells us that the world is lurching from one crisis to another.

But sometimes it can be hard to find something you’re thankful for when you’ve had a shitty day. I find myself repeating the same things: at least I have a home; I have food to eat; I have friends…

Then I came across a slightly different approach that really appeals to me: noticing the glimmers in a day. Just as you see glimmers of light in a shady wood, every day has glimmers in it, even if just for a moment.

It may be noticing a bird singing its heart out, or a beautiful plant catching your eye,or the taste if a good cup of coffee, or the cosiness of putting on a warm sweater, or stroking a pet for a few moments.

Our senses do get little glimmers no matter how tough the day may seem. The only time it’s not easy to notice the glimmers in a day is when there are so many, we lose count!

So next time you’re having a hard day, look out for the glimmers around you – they will remind you that it’s not all bad, there is light around.

So much of our lives is ordinary: routines, our homes, our family and friends, the landscapes around us, our work. Our circumstances all become familiar and just accepted as being how they are. In fact, we hardly notice them unless something out of the ordinary happens.

But we could really appreciate them – or decide to change them if we look at everything with fresh eyes, a different perspective, and it becomes a voyage of discovery that is better than any holiday.

Take a moment to imagine you are coming into your home for the first time as a new visitor. What impression do you have immediately? How does it feel as an environment? What attracts your attention? Would you change anything?

Or imagine you have been locked away inside with no access to or view of the outside world, and go into your garden or street. What delights you? What do you see, as if for the first time? (Going out with a small child can help with this, if you let them lead the ‘adventure’.)

Or imagine what you would miss, if you didn’t have these friends, this family. What would that deprive you of that brings you joy?

Or be you at 85 years old, reminiscing about your life. What lovely memories would you have? What would you regret or change if you could?

This is such a fun way to rediscover your own world, to bring back to life all your own taken-for-granteds. See things differently in your own ordinary life by looking at it with fresh eyes and discovering its wonders.

We all have times when we feel fearful, but when we look back on it, many of those times the fear was unfounded.

Fear is sometimes used as an acronym for ‘false evidence appearing real.’ What does this mean? We usually fear things which are in the future, so they haven’t happened yet. So, much of the time, the evidence we use as a reason for being fearful is created by our minds. It may be based on some past experience, or on something others have told us, but even if there are some grounds for the fear, we often embroider it from that fear-based mindset.

For example, rationally, how can we be afraid of spiders? They are so small in comparison to us, yet they somehow become monsters in our minds!

What makes it worse is that some fear-based imaginings of what it will be like set us up to handle whatever it is badly. We have already git ourselves stressed and anxious before we even encounter the experience – not a good state to deal with something well, or even accept that it is actually fine.

Of course, there are times when the fear we feel is accurate. This fear is more gut-based than head- based. We do have a good intuitive knowing if something is unsafe or dangerous, but it is based on immediate circumstances, not future imaginings.

So just notice if the fear you feel is really a ‘what if…’ – that’s your head making up stories. And it won’t help you, even if there were some accuracy in it. Decide to assume the best, rather than the worst. That is not only likely to be more accurate, it will also save your energy for dealing with whatever happens.

Like everyone else, I sometimes despair – about our world and its poor state, about our climate, about politics. But there are signs of hope, always, if we look for them.

Not everyone is kow-towing to Trump and his bullying. Canada, Mexico and China have all said ‘no, we are not saying, oh dear, what can we do when he tries to bully us.’ And a bunch of respected journalists in the US have resigned from their papers because they are accepting of Trump’s way and set up their own journal to say no.

And despite our weird weather patterns, the snowdrops are flowering in the garden, signalling spring, and there are signs of growth everywhere.

Looking for the signs of hope is important because that prompts us to be hopeful about other things. Hope is not a passive emotion – it prompts us into action, to create more hope and grow it into reality.

Whether that be encouraging and supporting those who are standing up for their rights and freedom, for decent values, or becoming more energised in our own little world, it makes a positive difference, not just to us, but to the world we live in.

I feel much more like clearing the winter debris from my garden, to find what else I have growing.. I feel more ready to encourage others to trust in themselves and their power, and believe even more strongly that we as individuals can make a difference in this world and help make it a kinder and better place.

So go find your signs of hope and let’s get going. It’s our world, let’s make it the way we all want it to be.

It was hard to hear, last week, that Trump had decisively won the American election. Not only does it make you wonder about the values of half the American population, but also it will have an impact on the world.

But Kamala Harris’s concession speech reminded me of a principle we can all work to: ‘We concede the victory, but do not admit defeat.’

There are times when we all have to concede that we have failed to achieve what we set out to do, with the best of intentions. Bemoaning the fact that we failed, or blaming others for it, does not change that. We have to accept that it happened and give in to the loss.

However, that doesn’t mean that we have to give up completely. Rather than wasting energy on recrimination or regrets, we can accept how it is, and then use our energy to work out what we can do differently or instead, to achieve our intention.

This then becomes a creative endeavour, where we learn from what went wrong or didn’t work, and look for other possibilities. This works at a macro-level, – a major defeat in politics – but also at a micro-level – I upset a friend unintentionally, or I didn’t finish those tasks I set myself.

It is a waste of energy to allow a defeat of some kind to send you into despair. All that does is make you more likely to fail at even more and give up.

Instead, give in to the one failure and use your energy to make things work better next time.