Today I am grateful for flexibility.  In the spirit of discussing difficulty letting go of the way I’ve always done things, there have been several bumps in the road this week (some of which we will discuss later next week).  These things required me to make quick decisions completely against what I would normally decide.  I had no other choice but to go with it and, honestly, I found some peace.  I don’t know if it was the rest my brain needed, the jog to get me in a new state of mind, but being away from the standard day and then having to work on a day I normally don’t offered new insight.  Sometimes we really do need the silence to guide the mind.  Being able to work without distraction totally changes the playing field, but when we deal with the hustle and bustle all day, constant distraction, working distraction free becomes awkward or even unfamiliar.  We are trained to think it’s unproductive.  It’s the most productive we can be.  Our worth isn’t determined by how many fires we can put out at once.  It’s about how we can be flexible enough to know when we need to adapt and sometimes thinking outside the box to find an alternative solution.  It’s about being open to finding a new way of doing things—you may surprise yourself at how good it works out.

Today I am grateful for communication.  Even the cards today spoke about communication.  Sometimes we know what we want but we struggle to articulate it.  For years I’ve felt this thing inside of me that I really couldn’t explain.  It was this vague sense of knowing, of feeling a certain way, of seeing things a certain way and knowing that was what I wanted but having no idea how to get there and no idea of what it actually was.  I was burned emotionally so much as a child and young adult that I struggled to find safety or trust and I learned to mistrust myself as well. Plus the feeling of not knowing what I actually felt or how to explain it created deeper mistrust in myself.  But as I’ve been practicing, these things have been becoming clearer and clearer.  With learning to trust feelings and expressing what we want we learn how to voice what we need, what we feel and we learn how to get it.  I know I spent too much time worrying about how my actions impacted people—it had its positives as well because I could plan ahead for the best outcome, but it left me a neurotic mess because I was afraid of the negative implications of doing what I wanted.  But we have desire and drive and the ability to communicate in so many ways—we just need a little practice sometimes.

Today I am grateful for friends.  Sometimes we need those people who force us to come out of our shells, especially when we don’t feel like it.  I watch a friend of mine with a beautifully complicated dynamic—she is incredibly giving and loving and caring while also being super firm in her boundaries.  I admire her because she has 0 fear in expressing who she is but she openly embraces people for who they are and she understands things about them, the little quirks that make them special.  Me being a people pleaser struggled to understand how someone could be that bold without feeling shame or regret, and I realized, I have those ideas as well and I’m vocal as well—but she actually does something about it.  We need people who complement us, who make us see the other side of ourselves, who not only accept us, but who encourage us to be who we are meant to be.  It took me a long time to find people who accepted me like that and I am so grateful that I did.  Their unique talents, their ability to weather any storm, the assistance and community we have built.  It’s a gift.

Today I am grateful for living.  Going through any change is challenging, especially when we are working on ourselves or our development in particular.  Sometimes we want things to be a certain way or we feel so tired that we don’t want to push on (or feel like we can’t) and then something comes up and we have to expend more energy.  The other day I was so tired after work and I had a massive headache.  Work has been challenging and super busy, I’ve been up early to get in a productive workout, my son has been sick so I’ve been up with him for nights, and I’m balancing an endless to do list.  I knew I had to work on Saturday so the last thing I wanted to do was entertain but my husband told me he invited our friends over.  I initially told him I was so tired and my head hurt that I really wished he had told me before having people over.  At the end of the day, it was best they did come over because we had some good laughs, good foot, and we were able to support each other with our presence.  We can never pause life, as much as we may want too, so it was nice to embrace the moment and I am grateful that we have friends who cared enough to join us.  Our home, table, hearts, and stomachs were full—what a blessing.

Today I am grateful for decisions.  I know that some tough decisions are coming up soon.  I know that I need to be prepared for some of these and to do that I really need to be in touch with myself—I have to get really honest about what I want because these are the decisions that are going to change the course of many things to come.  There was a time I would let myself get overwhelmed by any decision, and there are times I still get overwhelmed by even the tiniest inconvenience (I’m working on it).  Now I see it as a gift.  I have so many opportunities in front of me, and as long as I find the clarity and focus, I will make the right decision—and I know it will be the right decision because if I am in that frame of mind I will be aligned with what I am meant to do.  Decisions aren’t meant to overwhelm us, they are meant to be a gift to help us cut away the extraneous in our lives, to help narrow our focus to what matters.  All we need to do is be honest about who we are and what we feel and the deciding becomes easy because we know exactly what we need to do.  Embrace the tough choices because at the end of the day, they really aren’t that tough—they are meant to get us where we need to be and we are lucky to have the option to make those choices.

Wishing everyone a wonderful week ahead.