Keeping Gratitude in Mind

One of the most instrumental aspects of my growth has been embracing gratitude. I can’t tell you how much just simply being thankful makes me a better person. How much richer life is. How much happier I am. How much freer I feel.

Being grateful to me is more than just feeling it though. It is expressing thanks. I make an effort to tell people. Tell much I appreciate their presence in my life. How much I appreciate when they do things for me, when they spend time with me. How much I appreciate them letting

Enough Already!

We spend inordinate amounts of time calculating how much we have, want, and don’t have and how much everyone else has, needs, wants. We spend most of the hours and days of our lives hearing, explaining, complaining, or worrying about what we don’t have enough of.

How many of you feel like you have wasted valuable time in your life in this spiral of need/want? Feeling that no matter what you do, how you look, no matter how hard you try, it is not enough. You are not enough. There is always more out there. More money. More clothes. More passion. More food. More adventure. More, more, more. Our lives are waiting out there, outside of ourselves. Why can we not be content? Why can we not be enough? Why do we want to be boringly perfect? Why? What is wrong with you? What is wrong with me? What is really so terrible and wrong with life right now? I was given this life and these skills, why do I want to idealize and be someone else? In today’s world and social

Availability

Last night as I sit at a table surrounded by enpowering, inspiring women, something that my aunt Cheryl says strikes me: availabilty.

Over the holidays my mom, sister, and cousin Sara began making infinity scarves as presents. But somehow it began to grow. They began selling them like crazy. When they got a big order and needed to make 100 scarves we all jumped in. Angelica spent 3 hours in line on the day after Thanksgiving just to get fabric cut. We took shifts cutting. My grandmother’s dining room table become overrun and weighed down with three working sewing machines, as Sara, Amanda, and I put the pedal to the medal sewing straight lines, as my grandma worked away in her office. In the living room, mom circled up her sister Gina and Cheryl to teach them how to finish up. Angelica stepped into to cut when needed and played the role of godmother, taking care of not only Trenton but Brody and Gavin (which was real work as they rapidly stripped down naked, dancing around with their underwear on their head). Doug managed, making sure we were all taken care of and that things were in place. Jenna brought a round of refreshments and much-needed caffeine (as well as the list of must-have sushi list). We banded together to accomplish the task.

Just Press Play

In the midst of serious thought, in constant life consumption, you need to hit a life pause button and pound the record play button. Play a tune. Let it fill you. Let it extend and radiate through and from you. Let it out. DANCE. Express yourself. SING. Perform. Be silly. Share it with others. Laugh at yourself. Lose yourself. Be apart of the holiday spirit. Be aware of your surrounding. Of the surrounding joy. The comfort of familiarity. Of love. Of family. Of friends. Of giving. Of time. Of giving time. Of being present in the moment. In only feeling right NOW. Have fun and BE with the ones you’re with at this time. 

Thanks for Thankfulness

It’s funny how as my thoughts change, so does my Holiday preference. Don’t get me wrong I’m still a Halloween lover and the nostalgia of Christmas traditions and snows sends me into a euphoric state, but a day to celebrate thanks is something I can really enjoy.

Living from gratitude is something I focus on each day.

Being thankful has saved me.

It has made me a better person.

It has filled me with richness.

It has made me love harder.

To live more. To appreciate life. To be enthused about my life.

It has mae me not take others for granted. It has allowed me to see them. To see beauty. To see the world as beautiful.

It has helped me get through set-backs and challenges in my life.

Giving Compliments

I persistently seem to be in my own head (and I admit stubbornly so- I can overthink it). Declaring my own responsibility for how I live my life and respond to people and situations. I consider myself friendly and giving, yet not seeking validation or generosity in return. This does not mean that I am immune to the feel good- make you smile-soul lifting- brighten your day-brighten your existence-make me want more effects of compliments.

Dear Vandalizer

Dear Vandalizer,

Thank You, thank you for allowing me to be how I write and say to be. We can talk about how to act and be til we’re blue in the face. We can project our best/wanna be selves to the wold, but that doesn’t mean that’s who we are. Who wants to read about happiness from someone who is depressed in real life. Tuesday I wrote about how wonderful and good people are and yesterday morning I declared it Thankful Thursday.

Golden Auras

Only I could take a crazy night out with my best friend and turn it into a sentimental life lesson (I actually blame the Rumi and hike for further nurturing of this). I’ve got two months before I leave for Colorado, that means focusing more on what I have here and getting in as much time with my people as possible. The last year I have been consciously working on my relationships. In recollecting on my experience with Tab and in drumming up memories of our past, I’ve come to realize some things. To get some clarity, let’s go back to Rumi. In reading the introduction, the author was explaining Rumi’s friendship with Shams:

Even the word love may be wrong for what Rumi and Shams share. Their friendship widens to include the sun, the fields, and “anything anyone says”. It is a kind of atmosphere that they inhibit. the place they reach is where, in some way, they are not, where absence, or a vastness, is. Perhaps love isn’t the word for it. Something grater than the personal opens, burns, and rises through. It cannot be understood or described, but it can be lived.

Holy shit that is deep and I could almost just post this and be done, but seeing as I’m going to send this to her I think I should clearify for her. Did I really just compare me and Tab to Rumi and Shams? Yes, I think this is true, granted we’re a

Purity, Gratitude, and One Great Life

I’ve been trying to wrangle in my thoughts for a week now to write this post, but after talking it out with my mom I’ve realized how verbal communication is a great outlet for organization as well. I love weekends, I wish I could bottle them up and keep replaying them. It’s my most inspired time, and last weekend was no exception to the extraordinary life that I’ve created. Last weekend the connections were flying at me from everywhere, I was overwhelmed with feeling. Feelings of love and most strongly, of gratitude, to the point that I found myself crying. Crying not because I was sad, but because of how wonderful life is and how thankful I am for the people who I am about to discuss. I felt that electric current of life pulsating through me again, and it expressed itself in the form of beautiful tears. It seemed all weekend, as if I was meant to see love everywhere. No matter where I turned, there was someone I loved; it seemed like all the most important people found their way into my path last weekend. It started by sorting picture in my shed by myself. As I looked back at the great moments and

The World through Heart-Shaped Glasses

Extraordinary, extraordinary, extraordinary; this word has been racing through my mind as I’ve been journeying into Dr. Dyer’s Wishes Fulfilled. As this weekend began I set off to discover just what it is like to lead an extraordinary life is like and to catalog and ponder upon it here. So set out with “What do extraordinary people do?” imprinted on my hand and a new-mind set. So put on your heart-shaped glasses and travel along with me. It began Saturday with me and mom whisking my nephews away from my sister to take them to the park to run up the hill. As they giggle and topple their way down the hill, with Trenton’s curly hair proceeding his legs, I can’t help but laugh and feel light-hearted. How lucky am I be here? To have these