Today I am grateful for gathering.  I’ve always been pretty independent and autonomous—I’ve had to solve a lot for myself so I developed a mentality where I didn’t need a lot of people.  But the truth is I don’t think I understood how much I actually did need people.  Community always felt like a shackle to me because I felt like I had to give up all sense of who I am either for the collective good or to support the goals someone else had set for me.  I thought I lost myself in community because they didn’t want to hear or see what I had to contribute.  The only way I could make myself heard is to agree with what they said.  I heard recently that the light has been blocked out by others, others have intentionally held us back because they didn’t want us to shine.  So it wasn’t so much about what community did or took from us so much as it was about finding the right community.  We need to be with the people who value our contributions and opinions rather than those who make us adhere to theirs or believe that their opinions are the only ones of value.  Find the ones who brighten our light instead of block it.  Community is a beautiful thing if we are with the community that values us.  Don’t mistake company for understanding and camaraderie—the company needs to match the intention we have and the vibration we have.  Then our voices all harmonize together, each complementing and assisting the others to be heard.  We each have a part.  So we gather with those who understand us and that is how we thrive.

Today I am grateful for acceptance.  Normally this is something along the lines of self-acceptance but this time I’m referring to situational acceptance.  Things are very different than they were last year at this time.  We are preparing for back to school (our school doesn’t go back until after Labor Day) and we have a party every year for the kids to get together and blow off steam for the end of summer.  We invited a large part of the class and then some so everyone feels included—last year we had a huge group of people come throughout the night.  This year things have changed in the group and timing was a bit off so we didn’t have as many as before.  We also had different excuses than before and the atmosphere with those who did show up was different.  See, as I’ve been working on self-acceptance, the things I tolerate from people have changed.  I made it clear the door was still open for those who had decided not to come but I didn’t beg them to change their minds.  We had some tense moments related to boundaries and I didn’t let it bother me.  I allowed it to be as it was.  Acceptance allows clarity and we all still had a good time.  We all survived.    

Today I am grateful for seeing patterns in myself and in family and friends.  We can grow up in really different situations and still develop the same patterns—different causes can create the same reasons for protection.  Seeing the patterns objectively has shown me what needs to break for the next generation.  I have seen first had that many of the patterns I’ve adopted over the years do not work.  I’ve learned to take on some new patterns and start defining my own way of dealing with things.  Breaking those patterns has led me to treat certain relationships differently and to not allow certain things—it’s allowed me to better identify patterns in other people.  Friends who need to be the star of the show, friends who need me to feel for them, friends who need me to solve things for them (and who only come around if they need something), things that make me shy away even if I need to step up, things I need to maintain boundaries on.  The people we thought would be around us forever don’t always stay and sometimes we find those who help us through a time and see they aren’t there forever.  It’s ok to get what we need and it’s ok to get what we want—it doesn’t make us selfish, it makes us aware.    

Today I am grateful for those who pay attention.  I’ve struggled my entire life with time.  I’ve also learned that in order for me to feel safe, secure, unrushed, if we have something coming up then I like to take little steps to prepare leading up to it rather then do a huge rush to get ready the day before or the day of.  I struggled this past week because I was trying to finish up work and I work longer days than my husband does, so I had an expectation of what would be done in his free time.  I frustrate myself to no end in these scenarios and I know this—it’s a pattern I need to break.  But putting things together yesterday and being with people who support us showed me that it does come together in the end and that some thigs don’t require as much preparation as I thought they did.  I also saw as the night went on that people were bringing up the changes I’ve been going through physically as I’ve been taking better care of myself.  I appreciated the compliments people have given me, especially as I feel I’ve plateaued a bit with my efforts because of the events of the last 6 weeks.  Sometimes our efforts aren’t seen or noted immediately but as we keep going on, we feel different and we see we are an inspiration for others.  I am grateful to those who pay attention because they do keep me on the right track.

Today I am grateful for the ability to help and give back.  I loved seeing how much fun the kids had here yesterday.  I loved seeing them swim and run and be free and then change their minds and go to the park and walk independently and run around the yard and all of the games they were making up and riding the bikes with each other, giving each other peg rides like we used to when we were kids.  The spirit of being a child is universal and it is a beautiful thing to witness.  These kids wanted to come in the house and watch TV a handful of times but we told them no and watched them take up the challenge of being outside and present with each other—and they did great.  During the past week I’ve had to work on a challenging relationship with a friend and colleague because there was a lot of emotional cross over and we needed to set boundaries.  I could see that I had set this individual off (unintentionally—I had adopted my pushing behavior thinking this person was ready to move onto the next level and making excuses) so we sat down several times and worked through where we each were at and what was next.  That night I received an email asking be to be a stakeholder in the next round of decision making for the system when it comes to our department.  Being able to give back is a powerful thing, and I used to think that focus on what we were good at would limit what we could return but I’m seeing that it’s a power source for it—it amplifies what we are capable of. 

Wishing everyone a wonderful week ahead.