Today I am grateful for courage.  Courage looks different in different situations—it isn’t all brass and bold and bullish, making a scene so people are aware of our power.  Courage is the quiet voice that tells us to go on, to stand up again, to have class when we would rather fight dirty or curl up and play victim, to not tell anyone about the changes we’re making and do it anyway.  Courage is deciding we don’t need any outside interference and doing what we want to do regardless because we know it is right, doing what needs to be done without fear/worry/shame, acting from the core of who we are without worry about what others think of us.  Courage is looking for answers we may not want to know but digging anyway, facing the truth even if we don’t want to hear it.  Courage is taking care of our own needs when we would normally put ourselves aside or making the choice to tell people no (or yes depending on the situation) when we normally wouldn’t.  When we have the opportunity to show that courage, if we take it, that is the most liberating thing we can do.     

Today I am grateful for empowerment.  Following courage and the act of showing it and taking the steps to feel it, I am grateful for the ability to remember power and know that I don’t need permission to show it.  We don’t always have to play nice, we don’t always have to find ways to keep the peace.  Sometimes what needs to be said simply needs to be said.  Not for a scene or a feeling or for anything other than the fact it needed to be said.  We can spend our entire lives waiting for a moment, waiting for someone to make us feel like we are worthy of what we deserve or that we are worthy to try and move forward instead of burying ourselves in the dirt.  Or we can decide we know exactly who we are and what we need and we can move forward, making decisions, and taking actions that will get us the result we’re looking for.    

Today I am grateful for honoring myself in all the ways I need to.  For welcoming the new life that I’ve been talking about building for years.  For putting aside any possibility of fear and doing it.  Saying yes to what works and not worrying about the potential fall out from the “no.”  Not worrying about all that comes with the yes and whether or not I’m worthy of it or if I can keep up with it and maintain it.  To just quietly say “thank you” to the old me for getting me here, and then saying “thank you” to the me that said yes to this turn of events, and being grateful for what comes with it all.  Knowing I can handle it all as it comes.  Knowing that I don’t need to worry about what comes tomorrow when I’m in this moment that I prayed for yesterday.  That I am powerful, that showing people I don’t need permission means doing what I said I was going to do in the first place.

Today I am grateful for confidence.  Not just the kind of confidence that comes from liking how we look or what we’ve done, but the kind of confidence that comes from absolutely knowing who we are.  I thought being friends with people and being with people meant fighting my way in and trying to be in every room every time.  I no longer feel the need to impress people or make people feel any type of way toward me.  This was a light switch moment—I clearly see the delineation between the before and after of when I felt a certain way and when didn’t.  I can’t pinpoint the exact second that happened, but I know what it felt like.  I didn’t feel the need to run into the party, introducing myself to everyone, to the people I didn’t know, to the people who ultimately had no impact on my life, to impress them for anything.  I didn’t need to make them do anything.  And I didn’t seek out their permission either.  I didn’t seek out their approval. I stood my ground, I felt rooted in who I was and I said yes to what I wanted and no to what I didn’t. 

Today I am grateful for inspiration.  I’ve always known I was a writer, since I was a kid.  I never took the time to explore this gift in a way that would make it viable to make a living, that it would allow me to live the life I want to doing what I love and now that I am actively working on this, it seems like there are always ways things happen when we least expect them. They don’t always happen when we think they will—they happen in their own time.  Not only that but sometimes we have to see the inspiration of all the things we want/try to put together actually come together from someone who has done it.  There is no one right way to make the life we want happen.  There is nothing that says we are bound to only do one thing.  Sometimes the young version of ourselves tells us what we already know and we have to be reminded that where we are now is where we told ourselves we’d be at some point—that even if it didn’t happen THEN, it can happen now—and sometimes we had to go through what we did in order to make the now happen.  The dreams we have speak to us for a reason and we need to remember that they are for us, no matter what shape/form/time they come in.  Making a name for ourselves doesn’t necessarily mean a name in one thing, a name with one definition.  Making a name is synonymous with making a life.  Making the life we dream of, the life we are gifted with.  We create ourselves and sometimes we have to be reminded through seeing someone else that we just need to keep going a little bit.  Just keep moving when we think we can’t and the next thing we know, all those dreams become a reality.

Wishing everyone a wonderful week ahead