Today I am grateful for standing my ground.  There often isn’t need for a big show or the drama that accompanies the chaos that people like to bring into our lives.  Some people simply like a show, they like to be the victim, they like the energy in that type of attention.  We do not have to participate in any of that.  Yesterday I had to make a choice to not participate in an event because of the behaviors around it.  I had done my part in asking to discuss certain things that occurred prior to this event with the goal of clearing the air and creating understanding—I am no longer interested in pretending shitty behavior hasn’t occurred and I have always been big on discussing what happened so everyone involved is on the same page. Neither of the latter two things occurred before this event so I made the choice that this wasn’t something I would participate in because I was not comfortable with pretending things were ok or giving the impression that recent events were acceptable.  We didn’t make a big scene, we removed/eliminated ourselves from the drama by not participating.  That was the best choice I could have made for my family.    

Today I am grateful for spontaneous date nights and family fun.  My husband and I very purposefully set up our home for entertaining.  He always loved going out when he was younger while I preferred to stay home.  I was always the worrier about our finances and frankly I never did well in crowds/social situations (shocker, I know).  It wasn’t that I didn’t enjoy going out and doing things, I just knew at the time we couldn’t afford to do all the things we wanted to do as often as he wanted to do them and there was usually some issue or another that I would have with someone (that is a LONG story so suffice it to say that I struggled).  Regardless, we love games and movies and other sorts of entertainment so we set up our home so we could have large gatherings here with people we care about.  We are so incredibly grateful to have been able to set up our basement that way (we found amazing deals on 98% of all the things we have down there and inherited some of it) and we love spending time together hanging out, playing, and relaxing—we don’t take that for granted for a second.  And, again, it was very intentional so it’s always nice to have a plan come together like that.  With that being said, sometimes we need to shift the energy and it’s another fortunate thing that we are able to go out every so often with each other and simply let loose and have a good time—like a bowling/arcade night.  It keeps us fresh and it keeps us close as we find ways to have fun both in our home and out.  I am FOREVER grateful to get to spend time with my family like that, especially when things are a bit challenging emotionally.  Sometimes you just need to do something fun together to get out of a funk—getting out of our heads always helps.

Today I am grateful for planning.  I have often shared my complicated relationship with planning, time, anxiety, and OCD.  In my last role at work I was simultaneously incredibly organized and scatter brained and forgetful and pulled in multiple directions while standing my ground in others.  The level of responsibility shouldn’t have been anymore than I’d had in my previous roles, frankly it should have been less because I had a smaller amount of direct reports, but  I was over 3 unrelated areas and often had to switch gears mid thought to address one fire or another and, toward the end, some of the interpersonal issues became so severe that I truly didn’t know what to address first—ever.  I would come in and be able to handle what was on the calendar but I would never know what other crap I would have to address that day and that crap came fast and furious all day long in a barrage of bullshit (most of it avoidable on top of it).  So I often planned my days but still managed to feel like I was falling down a slide with no way to stop, asking myself where the time went.  I also found myself locked in a basement office with no perception on time and feeling like everything was slipping away, pulled out from under me.  I’d wake up and repeat the same bullshit stressors every day on repeat and I did it for years, seeking ways to fit in all the things I WANTED to do, yet somehow never managing to find the time to do it because I’d be exhausted at the end of the day.  Now I’m in a role where I have a significant amount of freedom and I felt lost because I wasn’t sure how to manage my days—I’d been so used to keeping myself open to deal with crises at all times that I didn’t know how to be NOT responsible for everything.  So here I had the freedom I wanted but still wasn’t getting what I wanted to do done.  And then I realized I have the ability to take control and plan out my day the same way I would have for anything else but to prioritize the things I valued/needed to do for my sanity.  The goal of this was a new life, and here I have the key and I’m standing at the door.  All I needed to do was walk through it.  I was allowed (and now encouraged) to prioritize the things I needed to do—my life comes first.  It’s still an adjustment, but what a beautiful thing to adjust to.  I’ve been told all the things I envisioned for my life are priority so now I’m diving in and adapting to making sure those things are added to my to do list just as much as my other responsibilities and it feels amazing to make progress in that arena.  So I’m grateful for that opportunity and for learning to follow through on that.     

Today I am grateful for love.  We all know love isn’t just romantic—love is an energy.  The purpose of love is to bring us closer to what it is we do and we experience love in so many ways.  Yes, I LOVE my family and I am bonded to them like no other both as a wife, a mother, a daughter, a sibling, and a niece—and I can’t forget my furry babies as well.  I LOVE my friends for their understanding and compassion and for their creativity.  But I also love that I have this freedom now.  I love my creativity and that I get to spend more time with it.  I love that I have more time to take care of myself and share those results.  I love that I have more time to focus on my business and helping people by doing the things I love.  I love that I get to work on my writing more. I love that I get to spend more time in faith and healing.  I love that I get to set up my home how I want to and that I am fortunate enough to be able to do so.  I love that I get to learn things personally and professionally and that I have access and time to do so.  I love that I have the ability to put all of the pieces of this puzzle together into one beautiful picture and I love so many pieces of the life I have created that the rough points really don’t matter that much in the grand scheme of things.  When it comes to that energy of love, I see how important it is and how love really is the driver for this life.  This world really is magical and full of infinite possibility—we just need to be open to see it and love gives us the power to see that.  Love is the way to connect with ourselves and the world around us and part of setting up these new boundaries and experiencing this new gratitude in my life is to protect my ability to be in this love state as often as I can.  We need to be an example of that.        

Today I am grateful for presence (and manifestation).  I think this is one I’m going to make as a weekly thing because, along with love, I now realize that presence isn’t something we can be grateful for when we experience it—it’s something we need to be aware of and grateful for at all times and it is a privilege to be alive in the moment.  Presence is a deliberate act, a choice to be in contact with what IS and not force the moment to change.  I’m working from home and my son is on summer break and we need to work together to see what we are doing that day and what the plan will be with my work schedule and the things he needs to do.  I’m learning to allow exactly what needs to happen to happen.  The house is still torn apart so distraction abounds in the moment but there are still so many things to be aware of and grateful for in the chaos.  We get to be the eye of the storm and keep that calm during moments of (what feels like) insanity.  While my sister was still in town, we connected in a way we haven’t in a long time—we had lots of long talks, we walked, we bonded over things we have in common.  During one of those conversations I had recommended some books to her.  She liked one of them and said she was going to buy it and the sequel to that one she said she would consider after fully reading the first one.  She texted me last night that she went to an event and she got a free book—the sequel to the book I had recommended.  Had I not paid attention to what she was going through, I wouldn’t have thought of those books, and together we manifested that in her life.  I manifested the calm and the presence for myself.  I’m grateful for the gentle reminders that we are allowed to connect with our power.      

Wishing everyone a wonderful week ahead.