The most important poignant lesson I learned this year is that gratitude is the most important thing to feel, express, and have in life. In my deepest darkest moments of despair and pain, in addition to do saying the Serenity Prayer in my mind and aloud, feeling gratitude for all the Blessings in my life helps me feel better and gain a better perspective. Unfortunately, my holistic self-care journey is somewhat painful because I'm on the road to recovery from various painful health challenges and it's an uphill roller coaster. There are days when I feel very good and hopeful and the next day I feel like I've been set back several steps. Thankfully, cuddling with my fur babies, laughing while watching comedy, enjoying a wonderful, soothing, hot, cleansing shower, and enjoying sweet intimacy with my dear husband helps me to feel better. Then, the painful fog lifts and I feel a lighter joy and I can go on with my day and enjoy my daily activities. It's strange, but I never thought of being grateful for those dark moments of despair, but I've learned that everything in life is a lesson and with each painful moment, I grow, learn, and become wiser and most importantly, I am grateful to survive those painful moments. I also think about the pain others suffer and I realize that everyone has their painful journey and until we walk a mile in each other's moccasins, we have no idea how the other person is feeling.
Gratitude is very humbling and a wonderful sweet feeling. Recently, I've been gently reminded to be thankful that I can hear, see, taste, feel, love, laugh, cry, walk, talk and many other wonderful Blessings in my life. I'm sharing these thoughts with you because I know how it feels to have the walls closing in as many people can relate to in the analogy of the trash compactor scene in the movie, Star Wars. I've learned to take life one day at a time and most importantly, gratitude is vital to enjoy life and enjoy more sweet moments than dark moments. One of my favorite lessons I learned from the beautiful film, The Secret, is the moment I get up out of bed, regardless of how I'm feeling, as my two feet touch the floor, I say aloud and silently in my mind, "thank you." Gratitude is very healing and a very humble reminder of all the wonderful Blessings in our life and helps you to focus on what's right with your life. Right now at this moment, I feel very thankful for the beautiful readers feeling good while reading this and enjoying your moments of sweet joy as my loving prose touch your life. This is why I write. I write to inspire, uplift, open your eyes, make you think, and feel good, feel joy. If I touched you and helped you feel better with these words of prose I wrote, then I'm very thankful and I'm very happy I can do that for you. I send you much Healing Love, Light, Joy, Blessings. Thank you.