Today I am grateful for friends.  Sometimes we need our friends to help us put things in perspective and that is something I felt like I’ve needed as of late.  There’s a lot of crap going on and sometimes we need to just realize what is good and having a group of people we can relate to, laugh with, and solve problems with is a gift we should always be grateful for.  There are people we can just meet and they understand us more than those we’ve known our whole life.  Sometimes we just need to know that someone resonates with who we are and that we are understood.

Today I am grateful for nature and outside.  We came back from a business trip/vacation a couple of weeks ago and we were in some of the most beautiful land in the country.  Being near mountains, trees, rivers has always brought me back to present.  There is nothing more awe inspiring than being with nature and seeing what this world is really made of.  We are part of that and all of the nonsense we waste our times with, the crap we waste our time convincing ourselves we need to do, only distracts us from the reality that we are nature. When we stop trying to be something else, we fully embrace where we are and be in our element. 

Today I am grateful for seeing my kid explore and become more of who he is.  I got to watch him with a new friend today.  This kid is very close to a select small group of friends so for him to break out and try new things and realize that he can have fun doing new things was a gift.  Watching him spend time outside with friends and simply be a kid is an absolute joy.  He saw that he could do new things, that there are other people out there who will love and care for him for who he is.  It’s a gift to have a small group of friends and I wouldn’t begrudge him for that but it is also a gift to see that there are other parts of him that people will appreciate and other things he can contribute that he was afraid to before.  This kid has carried a lot of heavier things in his short time here and he takes life seriously, he’s hard on himself.  So watching him be a kid and enjoy it is awesome.

Today I am grateful for opportunity.  Truly you never know when opportunity will hit.  It’s funny how we think we know what we want and we do all of this “stuff” to build the life we want and oftentimes we find the most opportunity being ourselves.  Sharing who we are and what we do should be as natural as breathing because when we are who we are, there is nothing to present—we simply are.  There is magic that happens when we take those opportunities.  We learn about ourselves, what we can do, and what we really want when we take chances on ourselves.  We just have to believe and have the guts to go for it.

Today I am grateful for helping.  When we are able to offer our help it’s a gift.  It is the greatest fulfillment of our purpose.  Being able to remind people of who they are is a huge gift and to do that while being the most authentic version of ourselves is the entirety of why we are here.  To love, experience, enjoy, to share, to remember who and what we are.  We are meant to constantly change the paradigm and we have the opportunity to change it for the better.  How awesome is it that we can offer so much simply by using the gifts we are given? 

Wishing everyone a wonderful week ahead.