Today I am grateful for pain.  We had an unexpected loss in my family this week with the death of my aunt, and it brought about a lot of old emotion, some realizations, and opened some wounds while healing others.  I am devastated by the loss for different reasons.  Yes, it’s heartbreaking that we lost my aunt and I hate that her physical presence is gone, but her death was a bigger implication of what we lost beyond her alone.  We lost time with her (something that I can’t get into yet), we lost time with the family, she was evidence of the choices certain family members made, we lost a lot of “what could have been”, we lost a giant heart and a very open and gentle soul, we lost love, we lost one of the last links to the family.  But all of this loss has still made me grateful.  For all of my obsession with time and fear of loss, I never really did anything about it like reprioritize what I want to be doing.  I still try to find pockets of time for the life I want—and I know how quickly life moves.  It’s time to prioritize what matters.  There doesn’t need to be anymore loss to awaken that.  This pain can be used for good.  We can learn and reawaken the love, put aside any bullshit, and just love.  This loss doesn’t need to be meaningless. 

Today I am grateful for support and clarity.  The universe works in some pretty amazing ways.  It doesn’t always seem straight forward, but it always works out.  Sometimes there are things we need to do that we hesitate or fear to do, but once we do it, we see it wasn’t what we had built up in our minds.  Rather it was simply the next step.  The human mind is a wonderful thing but it creates exactly what it sees so if we see fear, we feel fear, we produce fear.  If we learn to channel that with clarity and intention, we are able to see what the next steps are toward our goals.  All the universe needs is our decision and conclusive action.  The rest will come together.  We simply need to decide and do.  I’ve been witness to things coming together quickly.  Even if it took time to get to that point, it suddenly seems to align and there we are, ready to take the next step.  It’s like a lock opening the door. 

Today I am grateful for trusting my intuition.  I spent so much of my life doubting what I thought and felt, never trusting that I’d be able to follow through or achieve anything because I wasn’t taught to believe in myself.  I felt that I could do it, but more often than not, the people around me would find ways to diminish that confidence.  Like, I’d know something I’d produced was good and someone would still find a way to tear it down.  Or they’d encourage someone else around me rather than recognize my talent.  Or they would focus on a negative about my appearance implying that how I looked somehow diminished what I did.  But my intuition has always told me that there is something more for me, something that I can produce that will spill over into the world.  It starts with love—love for self and a steadfast, firm belief that the opinions of others don’t matter.  Love greater than fear pushing forward to achieve goals in spite of what anyone else says.  Intuition is there to guide us and to help us find our way—it isn’t in us to make other people believe what is meant for our path alone.  I’m learning to let go of what others think is enough for me and to use the precious time I have to create the life I want, following my heart.  It has never guided me wrong. 

Today I am grateful for endings.  The endings I’m grateful for are the endings that take away the things that no longer serve.  So many of us spend our lives hoping for things to go another way, living in fear and uncertainty, waiting for the world to tell us what we are capable or worthy of.  If we are attentive to the signs and willing to look past the fear of things changing, the universe also shows us exactly where we need to go.  It will take away the things that hurt us.  While it may be a loss or initially feel scary, the truth is not everything is meant for us and if we don’t have the strength to walk away from what hurts us, sometimes the universe will step in and take it away for us.  Not all endings are bad things.  We feel the most relief from the endings we feel coming but are too scared to complete on our own.  Sometimes the universe just needs to give us that final push to walk away.  It’s ok to recognize when something isn’t working and to make a decision to walk away.  Not all endings are bad.

Today I am grateful for presence.  This has been a packed weekend with multiple events each day, multiple things to do.  With the loss of my aunt and the emotion behind that, I was afraid that I’d be too emotional or lost in it to really focus on all of the other stuff we had going.  Keeping myself going proved to be key in some healing.  We need to honor what we lost but we also need to pay attention to the time we have right now.  My son had an event at school and it was amazing—we even participated in the trunk or treat event and decorated the car and got dressed up and played with animals and played some games.  The whole time we were with friends and simply having fun.  Connection is really the most important thing, it is the best way we can possibly spend time together.  There is nothing like the presence of people who care to help remind us of what we have in front of us—it’s nothing to take for granted. 

Wishing everyone a wonderful week ahead!