Merry Christmas to all of you, from all of us at Mastery Horsemanship. Did you know that we appreciate you?! It's important you know how much we appreciate you. And for more than one reason. We genuinely want you to feel appreciated, and we also know what giving appreciation does to the spirit.

Did you know, that when you express gratitude, it makes your brain healthier? Science has literally shown that consciously remembering what's been given as a gift, forces your brain to be more resourceful.

In a version of the famous marshmallow test, a group of subjects were asked to express what they are grateful for before deciding to either eat the first marshmallow or save it for a larger reward later. In that version of the test, where gratitude was expressed in any way possible, for anything at all, we learned that most people, nearly all in fact, were willing to hold off and wait for the second gift. They were able to think longer term, more resourceful thoughts, because the fear of not getting enough was abandoned, and instead, they adopted a sense of confidence that everything would be okay.

I've known for a long time now how gratitude and other modes of positive thinking effect our lives. We, as a family have made it part of our daily lives to speak and remember the good things. Not just in a effort to make our minds healthier, but in an effort to one day, hopefully, impact the world in a small way too.

Every single night of the year, before we go to bed, our family follows a simple pattern. We call it our "Magic 5." We fill in the blank to these five phrases.