Coffee Thoughts: Reflections for a Peaceful Life

By David Dalton

Thoughts shape our reactions, tailor our responses, and contribute wholeness to our psychological well-being, while shaping our spiritual attributes and structuring our relational interactions. In Coffee Thoughts, author Dr. David Dalton offers reflections to help shape and analyze our thoughts.

Throughout this guide to managing your own thought processes, Dalton explores some of the doubts, fears, and perplexities he has experienced in various life situations and illustrates how he found comfort and guidance in his spirituality and in simple pleasures. He presents forty reflections followed by personal coaching questions, covering a host of life experiences:

Reflecting deeply Embracing the situation Learning to trust Rediscovering ones gifts Admitting weakness Expressing the beauty of today Exhibiting faith among lifes challenges

Intended for daily use and study, Coffee Thoughts offers a gentle and relaxed way of approaching what is often one of our most feared challenges, the remaking of ourselves.

• Language: English
• Publisher: iUniverse
• Release date: Sep 14, 2012
• ISBN: 9781475946352

David Dalton

David Dalton is the founding contributor of Rolling Stone magazine and is the author of James Dean, The Mutant King: A Biography, Faithful with Marianne Faithful and Rock 100 with Lenny Kaye.

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Copyright © 2012 by David Dalton.

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ISBN: 978-1-4759-4634-5 (sc)

ISBN: 978-1-4759-4636-9 (hc)

ISBN: 978-1-4759-4635-2 (ebk)

Library of Congress Control Number: 2012915861

iUniverse rev. date: 09/28/2012

Contents

Introduction

Using the Personal Coaching Questions

Reflection 1    Valuing Life’s Simplicity

Reflection 2    Reflecting Deeply

Reflection 3    Observing the Colors in Variant Situations

Reflection 4    Embracing the Situation

Reflection 5    Managing Emotions

Reflection 6    Enjoying Companionship

Reflection 7    Appreciating the Twilight Moments

Reflection 8    Learning to Trust

Reflection 9    Encountering Invasions of Normality

Reflection 10    Discovering Beauty in Life’s Contrasts

Reflection 11    Exhibiting Grace Toward Others

Reflection 12    Applying Stewardship Over Current Opportunities

Reflection 13    Displaying a Christ Grace Toward Others

Reflection 14    Appreciating Trusted Friendship

Reflection 15    Guarding a Sacred Trust

Reflection 16    Encountering Moments of Solitude

Reflection 17    Enjoying the Liberated Life

Reflection 18    Examining the Motives for Serving Christ

Reflection 19    Rediscovering One’s Gifts

Reflection 20    Finding Appreciation in Lack

Reflection 21    Gaining Inspiration from a Personal Friend

Reflection 22    Establishing a Safe Philosophy of Life

Reflection 23    Experiencing God’s Presence in Trouble

Reflection 24    Finding Meaning in the Absence of God’s Voice

Reflection 25    Relinquishing the What Could Have Been Mindset

Reflection 26    Experiencing a Liberating Grace

Reflection 27    Adopting a Healthy Mental Self-Talk

Reflection 28    Admitting Weaknesses

Reflection 29    Finding New Meaning in Former Thoughts

Reflection 30    Legitimizing Other’s Humanity

Reflection 31    Learning to Cry Again

Reflection 32    Becoming Comfortable With My Humanity

Reflection 33    Expressing the Beauty of Today

Reflection 34    Experiencing Internal Satisfaction

Reflection 35    Exhibiting Faith Amid Life’s Challenges

Reflection 36    Broadening My Selection of Friends

Reflection 37    Ascribing Meaning to Life Happenings

Reflection 38    Developing the Art of Friendship

Reflection 39    Noticing the Apparent

Reflection 40    Charting Life’s Process

If I can but leave this life with a humble frame of mind, gentle thoughts toward others, a kind word, a noble deed, or a worthy thought imprinted upon the minds of others, then I will have accomplished a most notable feat, a value that will outlast the memory of my name.

David Dalton

The Author

Over his career as a pastor and educator, Dr. David Dalton has observed many of the life-inhibiting frames of thought one often holds that are detrimental to one’s recovery and joy when walking through a crisis in life. He has witnessed countless individuals whose harmful attitudes have stolen enjoyment that should have been theirs to own.

It was not until David experienced his own personal tragedies of life, through an extreme and ongoing bout with life-threatening heart disease, that he became aware of the challenge one has in truly aligning his or her own personal attitudes into a synchronous system of wholesome attitudes for life and progress. This was, for David, a very personal journey. Along the way, he experienced the difficulty as well as the reward of adjusting