Today I am grateful for a new perception.  We all have moments when we think we understand something and then find out it was the complete opposite.  Sometimes our perception tells us that we are doing something wrong because it doesn’t feel right.  Sometimes our perception is right on but we deny it in hopes something else comes through or because we don’t feel comfortable dealing with the situation.  But when the perception changes toward truth, or uncovering a truth we’ve know and felt, then that is the most freeing situation we can be in.  When reality changes and it’s something your gut has been telling you, you have no choice but to listen.  I’m grateful to have understood my gut.  I see those around me uncomfortable trying to maintain what they always did when the entire game has changed.  Now I make moves.  One decision changes it all, one affirmation or confirmation of belief keeps us pointed in the right direction.  See what was always there and believe it—they think they have you fooled but trust the gut.  We see it for a reason and I am deciding to play differently.

Today I am grateful for fun.  I’ve fallen deep in the pattern of taking work too seriously again.  Things have been like a chess game lately and I’ve found myself more defensive than living and it was getting to me.  It felt like everything I did was being watched, critiqued, and then cut down, that all my work has been deemed irrelevant.  It also felt like unnecessary stress was put on me just to see me crack.  I could only take so much and I lost it at home.  And then home was rough and friendships were tough… So I came home early to start the holiday weekend and I spent time singing, hanging with my son, taking care of my animals, taking care of my husband and I—and trying to reconnect after the disaster of a fight earlier in the week.  There are times we simply need human touch, to hear laughter, to find that laughter within ourselves in order to reconnect with our humanity and each other.  I know I needed to come down off of the last 12 weeks of non-stop pressure to perform.  It’s time to stop playing the game where I let people make me feel like I have to perform for them.  I have my own agenda, my own dreams, desires, my own life—and I don’t need their permission to do it.  So I let my heart sing a little and I felt better.  It’s amazing what allowing ourselves to be a little freer does for the soul and mind.  And the laughter card came out right after this. 

Today I am grateful for becoming clearer on how to blend life.  I understand how fun incorporates with being taken seriously.  Actually taking fun seriously is a good way to look at it.  When we dive in and entirely immerse ourselves in a dream or in an idea we learn the ins and outs of it and then we can seriously move forward.  If we want to be taken seriously we need to find our passion or something that moves us and we need to make moves that align with it.  When we talk about an idea it’s easy to let time slide and people see that we aren’t taking it seriously because we aren’t doing anything with it.  So when we get behind our own desires and back them with action, even if it’s something fun, we make progress.  Not that we need to prove anything, but that magnetic energy and understanding of what we stand for and our values becomes crystal clear when we act on it.  Loving what we do is important, loving who we are is more so—and supporting our own beliefs is life. 

Today I am grateful for evolving habits.  I’m working on dedicating myself to a new lifestyle every day.  I have things to learn where I’m at, there is no mistaking that, but I also know that is coming to an end.  I am moving forward and building the life I want.  The vision of what I’m working toward doesn’t include some elements of where I’m currently at.  For the things I want, the type of freedom I want, the things I want to create, I know there are facets of my habits and beliefs and training that will not work.  It’s feeling more and more uncomfortable trying to maintain those old things in the face of the new.  As I’ve spent more time in the new habits and working toward what I want, the old is feeling less and less comfortable.  I’m getting more comfortable declaring what I want and feeling what I want and then acting on it.  The more things feel uncomfortable, the easier it is to let them go.  There is no point trying to stay the same when our souls, hearts, and minds are crying for something different.  We aren’t meant to decide we are one person and do that for our entire lives—we are meant to change as we learn and to grow.  Allow it to happen. 

Today I am grateful for small steps.  I’ve had a habit/pattern in my life where I take a gargantuan leap forward and then realize it’s too much.  The support I need wasn’t able to make the same leap so I find myself alone.  I’d get distracted and go back to what I knew—and I didn’t like feeling alone on the ledge.  It’s time to understand that the leaps aren’t necessarily working—at least not to the degree I was taking them.  Small, consistent steps every day, reminding myself of what I’m doing these things for, staying on track every single day are significantly better than throwing everything away and losing our footing in something new.  Take the gradual integration of what we know and what we learn and keep taking those small steps every single day.  We can figure it out. 

Wishing everyone a wonderful week ahead.