Today I am grateful for beginnings.  I can’t tell you how many times I’ve started in life.  How many times I’ve had a burning desire, almost explosive, jumping out of my skin wanting to do something, or for something specific to happen.  How many times I thought I had “found my time” and was getting “what was owed” to me.  The mark of trauma is martyring ourselves and protecting ourselves from what we really want by not even trying because we think we don’t deserve it.  Every time I tried and failed, every time something didn’t happen, I was crushed.  But something in me kept going.  The cycle repeated because I reacted the same way to the same situation—in order for that to shift, I needed to change the reaction.  When we begin again, we can’t carry what happened with us.  We need fresh eyes and new ideas.  We need new mindsets.  Beginnings aren’t necessarily easy, but they are opportunities nonetheless.  When the right time comes to launch, do it.

Today I am grateful for love and support. I learned early in my life that I needed to do things for myself.  Not that my family didn’t take care of me—they certainly did, all of my needs were met and I was even fortunate enough to have plenty of extra resources and entertainment.  But I never thought I could do more than that as far as having dreams of my own and going after them—I never settled on what I wanted because I didn’t think I could do it.  I kind of took what came my way, being grateful for that instead of following the hunger for something bigger, something of my own.  I never thought I’d be able to achieve anything more or that I needed to prove myself to do it.  I isolated myself thinking that I was never worth asking for that kind of help, like my dreams weren’t worthy of assistance.  As I’m working through some massive changes, these new beginnings, I’m seeing how vital it is to have people around us that support us.  Life requires support and amazing things can happen with the right support.  There are times we think we have the right people only to find out they are energy drains or just using us for their benefit.  The difference when we find genuine support is astronomical.  That type of support can move mountains. It’s an incredibly freeing experience and it’s nice to take away the fear around going after our own dreams.

Today I am grateful for education.  I am learning so much every day and I spent a lot of my life thinking I knew it all because I took my education so seriously—I’m talking book education.  While I still highly value what I know, I now know that I have an infinite amount more to learn.  There are skills that aren’t taught in books and there are skills more valuable than making decisions about people based on what we see on paper.  Learning the skills we need to fulfill our purpose is an incredibly life opening experience because we see things in a new light and an entirely new way of being opens up to us.  There is nothing like that magnetic feeling of what is meant for us coming our way once we align with that purpose—and having the skills to keep ourselves going in that direction accompanied by the support of people who help us get there (or encourage us) is invaluable.  It is literally the doorway to a new life.  This world has infinite possibilities, things that can never be captured in words.  I had to learn that much of life was a feeling, not a regurgitation of what happened.  Once we get in that flow, a whole new world of learning opens to us. 

Today I am grateful for joy, community, purpose, and fun.  Life changes when we let life change, when we align with what we are meant to do and we stop resisting the calling of what is natural to us.  Life is far simpler than we make it—I will be talking about that later this week.  We overcomplicate our experience with projections and fears and rejecting what is ours and trying to take what isn’t—comparison and jealousy.  But when we let that go and we find what calls to us and we learn to find our purpose, we can relax.  The more we let go and we follow joy and fun, the easier that unfolds for us.  Joy and fun are what guide us toward the calling.  They aren’t meant to be fleeting emotions we feel, they bring us to our community.  It can be hard to let go of control, especially if we have been hyper independent—but the support we get from others can be invaluable, especially those who genuinely have our best interests at heart.

Today I am grateful for choices and actions.  All this time I thought I was making progress toward a goal, specifically a goal of independence, freedom, and sharing.  What I was doing was dipping my toes in, repeating patterns, running in fear the second things got close to something I didn’t know.  There is a massive difference when we get serious, let go of the fear, and take the action that moves us forward.  When we decide to take it seriously and go for it.  There is genuine freedom in that and we learn the simplicity of what we need to do—we simply need to decide on what it is, decide to do it, and then act on it.  There isn’t anything holding us back except for our own inaction.  The things we say we want won’t come to us until we align with them. I am grateful for the choice to choose my path.  I am grateful to be supported, to see the truth in those around me, to know who is for me, to know what I am for, and to know that I can do it.  There is a massive shift when we find the confidence in ourselves to do what we say we are going to do.  The sense of accomplishment with each step, the joy of doing what we love, the thrill of seeing it come together—that is pure magic.  That is the real alchemy of life—taking the vision and making it a reality.  There aren’t enough adjectives to explain that feeling, and I am grateful for every one of them—and I wish that feeling for everyone.

Wishing everyone a wonderful week ahead.