Photo by Pixabay on Pexels.com

Today is a day that we can all be thankful for, but I wanted to share some of my own gratitude.  I woke up healthy, my family is healthy, we have food to eat, water to drink, clothes, we are comfortable.

I am thankful that I get to spend time with my family.  I am grateful that I am able to determine my priorities and to make decisions based on what is aligned with who I am.

I am grateful that I have the ability to share my thoughts and to spark conversation and thought with people.  I am grateful that I have a gift to share with people.

I am grateful that I have the groundwork to do the hard things that I know I can and must do to create the life I want for myself and for others to create their lives as well.  While they may not be pleasant, I am able—and that is all I need.

I am grateful for developing clarity.  Today’s message was “You’ll outgrow so much because it’s necessary for your own evolution.  You’re headed somewhere incredible.  Allow it.  Don’t overthink why certain things happened a certain way.  Just focus on the lesson, invest in getting better, and allow something new to happen in your life.”  We don’t have to look at investing in ourselves as a selfish thing.  I look at it as necessary because if we aren’t the best versions of ourselves then we can’t provide to others.  And quite frankly, living someone else’s path will never get us where we need to be either personally or collectively.  We need the unique ideas people have and that only comes from supporting people as they are and looking at the value in their contributions.

I am grateful to release fear and to commit to a path.  I have been truly taking care of myself this entire week and I feel like a different person.  From working out every day to taking time to work on my projects to getting to spend time with my family, I feel energized and hopeful.  Simple acts have helped me to feel more alive than I ever have trying to prove my worth to other people.

Photo by Engin Akyurt on Pexels.com

We are experiencing life in action.  I went fishing with my husband and son today and we saw tons of people outside.  There is so much life, people exercising, kids running and enjoying the outdoors, neighbors saying hello again.  I couldn’t help but to think to myself, “This is how it’s supposed to be.”  We spend so much time locking ourselves up inside, in our offices and in our homes waiting for the right time to come out and enjoy.  We wait until we have done the “required” amount of work before we have earned the right to relax and have fun.  We wait until we have earned enough time off to go enjoy a vacation with our families—or on our own.

Why do we continue to follow these arbitrary guidelines?  Why do we start teaching them from such a young age?   Now, to be clear, I FIRMLY believe that kids need education and I FIRMLY believe that we all need structure of some kind.  But what I don’t agree with is that we don’t do these things in accordance with the natural rhythm of life.  We rarely sleep anymore in order to get things done.  We are taught that our intuition and our natural interests and flow in life are wrong and a system is substituted that keeps us on a rigid schedule trying to meet unattainable goals, working for hours on end for little return, locked in a room whether it is school or work or home and we are confusing arguing with communication.  The truth is we simply can’t go on at this pace anymore.  The world is quite literally telling us to slow down right now and to get back in touch with what we know is true.

We have been given the gift to live in a time where technology is rampant and can make life more efficient for us.  So why do we only focus on using it as a luxury and not as a way of being?  Because we are still looking at technology as a status symbol rather than a tool for all.  Those who can afford it will get it.  That mentality needs to end because there is nothing to gain from exclusion.

See, when we start getting back in touch with these things that are calling inside of us, we know that there are possibilities.  Look at all the beautiful things happening in the world right now through the use of technology.  Concerts are being shared via facebook live and Instagram and tons of other ways.  Museums are sharing their works with the world for free.  Lessons are being taught online for free.  It’s AMAZING.  And all of this is going to open up new channels of looking at the world and interacting with each other.

Because when we remove the hassle of money and the threat of “not enough” or the premise that we need to prove ourselves with material things, the ACTUAL exchange of ideas happens unimpeded.  And when you give EVERYONE access to that regardless of their financial circumstances, you give everyone a chance to participate and you give yourself a chance to learn something from people.  Now, we’ve had access to this technology for decades and people have already used these resources to share their ideas—I don’t pretend that is a new idea.  But what is new is the amount of people who now have to live their lives this way (working remotely).  And this is the new normal.

The world needs to focus more on eliciting good ideas out of people and in order to do that we need to learn to have real conversations.  We need to learn to listen again and how to get the message if we are unclear.   So we are starting small in our homes.  We are expanding to having a different style of work and a new level of trust that the work will get done out of an office setting.  Just because things have been done a certain way for a long time doesn’t mean they need to continue that way.  It’s exciting.  I feel like these are the first steps to witnessing a collective rebirth for us all.  We are going to continue to see new possibilities in this lifestyle and we are going to continue to question why we have to go back to the old way.  THAT is an awakening.  Dive in.