This has been a really hard year for me in a myriad of different ways. Yet even when things are hard (or maybe especially when they’re hard) it’s exactly when we all need to take a look at what IS good … and to take our attention off of what is painful and hard, and redirect it to what is a blessing and brings us joy.
I will kick us off:
- I am especially grateful to have known my father was dying, before he actually died, and having had those last few months to be extra attentive to expressing my love to him.
- I am grateful to have had a good relationship with my father, to love him as much as I did, and now to finally realize that it was special, and not everybody gets to have that.
- I am grateful that through my father’s passing, I have renewed my commitment to having a life of ease and flow, instead of push and struggle. (I think it was when he asked me if I really needed a 4th job, that I realized I was going a bit overboard…).
- I am grateful that I went to Queen’s University. I was recently reminded that I had such an amazing experience of school spirit when I was at Queen’s. Because I was living it at the time, I didn’t realize how special it was, and now many years later, I really see how much it brought to my life, and how much I want to create more of that in my life today.
- I am grateful for my health. It sounds so cliché, so let me flesh it out: I recognize that to live pain-free and disease-free is a huge blessing. To not be regularly dealing with the fear that comes when one is fighting a disease is a massive gift that I wouldn’t have recognized if I hadn’t walked through the fire myself. Cancer catalyzed my desire to be fully myself, fully expressed, and fully alive.
That desire is one of the most important things in my life, and so cancer brought me one of the biggest blessings in my life. - I am grateful to live in Canada … a country where I get to elect the people that represent me (side note: if you aren’t planning on voting, re-think it, get off your ass and get on the job, cuz it’s not just a right, it’s a responsibility!!). I am grateful to live in such a prosperous country with such freedom and opportunity. If I don’t choose to avail myself of those opportunities, that’s on me. And feeling victim to not having everything I want is actually my responsibility to turn around, because it isn’t the world that’s ripping me off. It’s me.
- I am grateful that the internet allows us this vehicle for expressing our thoughts, uncensored.
- I am grateful to have work I love … that uses my strengths and lets me bring my best self forward in contribution to others.
- I am grateful for my amazing community, my friends, my colleagues, fellow world-changers, they make it all worthwhile.
Over to you…
What are you grateful for? Please share in the comments below.
