Today I am grateful for character.  I’m proud of myself for allowing people to be who they are and for allowing them to be who they are in different circumstances, to be with them through different phases of their lives.  I’m also glad to know their character and to understand their patterns.  Some people are who they are no matter what we do.  They say a leopard never changes its spots and in some cases this is true.  We can’t be upset at the scorpion for stinging.  People aren’t all bad, but we do need to realize that no mater what we do, sometimes it’s just their nature to sting.  Once we fully grasp that, it makes it easier to be who we need to be—who we are. I never considered it a bad thing to allow people the benefit of the doubt, to give them chances.  But there came a point when I realized that my nature to give people a chance to be who I thought they were wasn’t serving.  There comes a time for all of those with a soft heart to understand it’s ok for them to walk away and it will be necessary at some point to put up that wall.  That doesn’t mean we have to harden our hearts—we are simply recognizing when someone will sting again.  It took a long time to realize that keeping people at bay so to speak wasn’t about being hard and it didn’t make me a bad person. It means we accept those people for who they are and we stay true to ourselves.

Today I am grateful for new beginnings.  For both the beginnings we plan and the beginnings we don’t.  I’ve had an unsettled feeling for years now, something I couldn’t quite put my finger on but it was basically like I didn’t fit anywhere I went.  In certain situations it felt like I was a rock being tumbled around, forced to blunt my edges, other times I needed to sharpen them, but the overall sensation was that no matter where I was, I didn’t quite fit in.  Constantly a square peg in a round hole.  For so long I felt like I had to immerse myself in some specific identity, some version of me that was true but not complete.  A constant battle between too much and not enough, the common factor being me looking for something to tell me what I was and where I belonged.  Needing someone to tell me my value, that I was welcome.  There comes a point where we no longer need to be invited to the room because we own the room.  We take control of our lives and we no longer seek approval or invitation—we simply move through life. When something doesn’t fit, we need to remove it or remove ourselves from the situation. Sometimes we have to say fuck it and just start over.  We get the feeling that something isn’t working—we need to trust that.

Today I am grateful for my son.  I call this out specifically because I’ve had the opportunity to sit and work with my son on some emotional healing and development over the last few days.  My son is a sensitive soul like me.  For as fiery as I am, I am indeed sensitive and I react quickly.  He feels just as heavily as I do and I witnessed the true weight this beautiful boy carries and I understood to the full extent where my role is to ease that burden for him and to teach him how to carry what IS his.  I’ve talked about how quickly time moves in general and I’ve even brought that up about the time I have with my son and I know now how determined I am to make sure that I get the most out of this brief window I have with him before he decides he’s too cool for me and wants to play video games for longer, or he goes out with his friends more, or that inevitable moment when he decides he wants to leave for college and all the millions of moments in between that tell me he’s growing up.  The moments I witness every day.  So when he wants to snuggle with me, I’m going to take those few extra minutes to let him.  I’m going to soak it all up and love him as much as I can and I’m going to make sure he knows he is loved and capable and important and strong.  When we have the opportunity to experience life, I’m going to take it, not push it off because I have some checklist of things I need to do.  All of that can wait because I have right now.

Today I am grateful for breaking patterns.  I’ve struggled with patterns at times because there is a fine line between routine and a rut—we need routines but we can’t let them become ruts.  We form habits based on our actions and the actions are borne of our goals but what happens when we see the tide shifting? Or when we have to learn new ways to achieve the goals we were looking for?  We have to be able to let go of what we knew and welcome the new.  Patterns serve to build the foundation but they quickly become walls/barriers to something new if we keep building the same layers over and over again.  Shaking things up is good for the brain.  It can be a bit disorienting at first but it’s ultimately exactly what we need.  Break the patterns, break the mold, be ready to say no and do what works for ourselves—be ready to say yes to what works as well.  And be willing to admit when we have to know the difference. 

Today I am grateful for camaraderie.  This is different than friendship.  My son has started a team sport and it’s a whole new world for us.  I’ve always loved athletics and playing games—even if I couldn’t play them very well 😊—but I never understood what it really meant to be part of team.  My entire life I’d either been too competitive or the team I was part of was too competitive (internally) and we didn’t know how to work as a unit.  Watching these kids function together and move as a unit, each one playing their role and even shifting roles as necessary is a beautiful thing.  Watching them celebrate their wins and even learning from their losses is really special to witness.  They learn new things about themselves and when they accomplish what they set out to do, seeing the satisfaction on their faces is like nothing else.  The pride they feel when they set a goal and achieve it is a nice reminder that sometimes we need a group to support us to hit those last few feet—someone to set us up so we can carry it home.  And other times we need to be the support and that is just as important.  Camaraderie isn’t about who wins, it’s about how we function together and when I see the teams I’m part of not functioning, it shows me that there is value in finding the team that does.  There’s no point in chipping away at the pieces of ourselves to make things work—we need to help each other shine. 

Wishing everyone a wonderful week ahead