Good Clean Reads

I have been living with a new level of pain recently. Something in my cervical vertebrae has pinched some nerves that feed my left arm and hand and there are moments that it takes my full concentration to pay attention to anything else. Nerve pain is unique in that it does any number of things to seemingly disassociated limbs. Shooting pains, heaviness, tingling, aching all dance around each...

My children have always been my most effective teachers. They show me the places I miss the point with their eyes. They demonstrate as gently as they can, what it feels like and what it doesn’t when you are listened to. Our family is an opinionated bunch, which with differing points of view, can make for both lively dinner conversation and not uncommonly, hurt feelings. Without question they...

Have you ever noticed that sometimes it’s hard to feel grateful just by “feeling” that way or “thinking” that way? Sometimes you need a little jumpstart—maybe it’s by talking to your friends about what you’re grateful for or maybe it’s by making your gratitude tangible. Check out what this Good Clean Love Daily reader does to make her blessings tangible and then try it out for yourself!

“I just...

Welcome to the newest reader-friendly contribution page. Since we at Good Clean Love are always striving to see the good in life and to cultivate gratitude in our lives every day, we’d like you to join us! In honor of our favorite movie, and one of the most obvious movies about small gratitude- It’s A Wonderful Life,we want to hear what you’re grateful for in your wonderful life! Whether it be big...

“One regret dear world, that I am determined not to have when I am lying on my deathbed is that I did not kiss you enough.” -Hafiz of Persia

Gratitude is actually the most basic and simple of all positive practices, but most of us want to complicate the simple; we just can’t believe it is that simple. A recent revelation in my summer of gratitude demonstrated this clearly. It seems so basic as to...

“What you focus on expands, and when you focus on the goodness in your life, you create more of it. Opportunities, relationships, even money flowed my way when I learned to be grateful no matter what happened in my life.” -Oprah Winfrey

I could jump for joy, it seems that finally I have turned the gratitude corner. My persistent focus on finding the grateful perspective on everything is taking...

by Anastasia Strgar

I’ve been riding horses since I was 8-years-old. Through my tumultuous adolescence, my horse Pegasus stayed by my side, amidst failed friendships, breakups and general teenage angst. Horseback riding became a sort of meditation for me; I could just be myself, and learning how to ride dressage taught me a lot about being confident, expecting the unexpected and facing each...

“I believe that the world was created and approved by love that it subsists, coheres, and endures by love, and that, insofar as it is redeemable, it can be redeemed only by love.”  -Wendell Berry

Love saves us. Although this line of thinking is usually reserved for religious parables, the truth of life bears out that love is the singular source that enlightens, inspires and guides us to the very...

“Gratitude is not only the greatest of virtues, but the parent of all the others.” – Cicero

I began the summer of gratitude challenge to learn how to experience the world through the magical filter of thanksgiving. As I have consciously stopped the insidious habit of taking the details of my life for granted and focused on them as gifts, I have become both more joyful and more able to actually...