Today I am grateful for spirituality.  I have been through the wringer over the last several months (some of it self-inflicted, some of it a result of outside circumstances that didn’t go as planned…or even as I was blatantly told it would).  So during this time I have learned to direct myself toward a different type of self-development and growth.  I’ve learned to look at my relationship with trust and I have been working on cultivating a deeper understanding of my resonance with the world, of my responsibility to create what I want and what I feel called to do.  It’s a truly difficult thing to accept that we have created everything around us but it’s true.  The good and the bad are all a result of what we have done and even the definition of good and bad are our own decisions.  It was intimidating for me to take on that kind of burden because I’ve spent years cleaning up after others.  Now I see it was the easiest thing to fix.  All I had to do was breathe and look at how I wanted to see the world and how I defined things around me.  I couldn’t have done that without a connection to the universe, the Earth, my heart, my soul, and the environment around me.  Doing so makes the reality of where we are and how we get where we want to be crystal clear.  I am grateful.

Today I am grateful for stepping up.  There are times in our lives when we realize the roles have changed.  One day we are a child and we run to our parents for everything and we are taken care of or we learn to be a bit more independent. Suddenly we are the ones who have to step in and offer them care.  Suddenly we are the parents and we are between our children and our own parents.  My dad has been dealing with some health issues lately and I was recently at a doctor’s visit with him so I could keep as informed as possible with what’s going on and what to expect.  He had a medical emergency while we were in the office and I didn’t hesitate for a second.  I stepped up and help administer support until the ambulance arrived.  So often we are afraid that we won’t know what to do when the time comes but it is the most natural thing in the moment.  There truly is no fear—just clarity.  There aren’t any questions, it’s just action.  It was flattering to hear the APN talk about how I should have gotten into medicine (I’ve been in the medical field for 20 years, just not clinical) but I know that was never my specific calling.  I’m good at it because I don’t want to see people get hurt.  But what I love doing is help people take care of themselves as well.  I struggle with fear and anxiety every day over the tiniest of things—but I am grateful in a true crisis there is no question of what I need to do.  I am grateful I can trust myself.  If I can do it in those situations, I can learn to apply it to all areas of my life.

Today I am grateful for knowing what to do.  The actions I took in the doctor’s office really got me thinking about knowing what to do in general. In my usual ADD way, I have taken on so many projects because I was still waiting for that lightening moment when I would know what to do next, where everything would become so clear that all the extraneous crap would fall away and I’d be living my dream.  Instead I’ve created a mountain for myself under the guise of not knowing what to do next.  I tell myself that I don’t understand what I have to do to make the things I want to do thrive.  The truth is I DO know what to do.  I just haven’t let myself believe that I know the right thing or that I am capable of doing it.  The truth is I know exactly what I am called to do and how to make it happen.  I’ve started and stopped a million times on a million projects and said something was in my way each time.  It was me.  Now I work on changing my vocabulary and my belief that I am able to succeed in whatever I decide on and that deciding on one thing now doesn’t mean I’ve cut off opportunities for other things in the future.  I do know what to do.  I simply have to do it and commit to it. 

Today I am grateful for releasing fears.  It’s always the way of it that when we are committed to letting go of the things that hold us back, the fears in particular, that the universe likes to expose us to that fear in the realest of ways.  My husband spending money.  My father having the emergency while in the office.  My cat being sick.  Bills coming due.  Markets coming up.  A lot of research to do and a lot of steps to take.  No answer on a job (still).  Having to make a decision to move forward and being uncertain about how (or what) choice to make.  We face all of these things because we tell the universe that we are ready to move to the next level.  But we can’t get past where we are at if we don’t let it go.  We need to let it all go.  The things we believed when we first started.  We are not that person anymore.  Those beliefs belonged to someone else entirely.  And if we are going to be a new version of ourselves, why would we carry the fears that belonged to someone else?  How did they serve us?  So.  While I am dealing with very real fears, I know that my previous reactions haven’t done a damn thing to fix them.  I know that I need to face them so I am able to become this next version of me.  And putting those bags down does feel good.  No matter what choice I am about to make, I know the first thing I have to do is let go of all of this.  Once those are down, I know that the rest will be clear and even if I can’t continue with all the things I am doing right now, I know what I am meant to do will take precedence.  Let go of the fear and let the answers become clear.

Today I am grateful for friendship.  I started a mom’s group several months back and I wanted it to be an all inclusive thing for all of the important women and mothers in my life.  Somewhere we could all connect and understand that we are all fighting the same things and we are all dealing with the same concerns.  We have the same challenges and the same successes and the things that make us unique only help us in the long run.  The group was a moderate success in that people really enjoyed themselves, but I noticed that there were simply some personalities that didn’t work well together.  I took the time to start working one on one with some of the women and then it became a group of 3 of us.  Within that group we have found a really nice dynamic and it is so nice to feel genuine support.  No competition, no fear of loss.  Just support and understanding and literally hearing and witnessing that we are going through the same things.  I couldn’t have moved forward in some regards without them.  Some of my closest friends have recently informed me of some things that make our relationship near non-viable and without this other group of women I would not have gotten through.  I am grateful to see how we can rally each other and to feel that we got this.  Because we do.  Imperfect and faltering, but we got this—because we have each other. 

Wishing everyone a wonderful week ahead