It feels very cliche to be writing a blog post about gratitude on Thanksgiving. But nonetheless, I’ve been wanting to do this blog post since the beginning of October so I’m taking advantage of an enforced day off to finally do this.
Yesterday I posted an exercise to Facebook and Instagram asking my friends to comment on what they thought my superpower was. (I took the exercise from Pat Flynn’s book, Will It Fly) One response I got struck me and stuck with me throughout the day. One friend commented that they thought my superpower was the ability to keep myself centered.
I think that struck me most because it is something I have consciously worked on for the past ten years of my life. As a natural worrier, falling off the cliff into anxiety and despair requires a very short runway. And as anyone who’s battled their own demons knows, you never really win. Rather, you fight the same battles over and over again, but you get better at fighting them through repetition.
In the months since I’ve started my business, I’ve become obsessed with mindset. James Wedmore’s Mind Your Business podcast is my favorite and it’s a good thing he puts out three episodes a week because I really can’t get enough of it! But my obsession with mindset isn’t a new thing. I got introduced to the concepts of mindset and manifestation several years before, I just didn’t realize how influential those discussions has been in my life.
The thing about mindset and the thing about gratitude, is you don’t get “there” and stay “there”. It requires constant work and realignment to pull yourself back to center. Staying positive, staying grateful, staying open, believing in abundance…all of these things are under constant attack in daily life. Whether produced in the mind, encountered in the words of a trusted friend, or affirmed by the less-than-pleasant stuff we all face everyday, we find ourselves having to choose gratitude, choose positivity, choose abundance over and over again. And exhausting as it all is to constantly be fighting the same battles, I think it’s the best and most worthwhile fight there is.
All that is to say, that as I sit here on Thanksgiving morning, I wrote this as a reminder to you that gratitude isn’t a daylong affair. It’s not a month or even a season. Gratitude is a 365-days-a-year knock-down, drag-out fight to stay centered and keep focused on what truly matters.
Of course I can’t close this post out without writing my own list of things I’m grateful for today (and every day). So without further adieu and in no particular order, I am grateful for:
-My boyfriend who has continued to come with me on every journey I’ve taken in the last five and a half years though most of the time he’s had NO idea what’s he’s in for. No idea. Case in point, he recently spent over three hours with me wandering around downtown Puerto Vallarta as I searched for un caballo huichol. Three hours in high humidity. That’s love folks.
-My parents who have always supported me in whatever obsession or fancy has currently diverted my attention. Always supported me.
-My boyfriend’s family who I’m spending Thanksgiving with – my first Thanksgiving without my own family! I’m looking forward to an out-of-the-ordinary day to round out my out-of-the-ordinary year. #ReadyfortheGenRave
-My friends who are somehow still my friends even though I take more than a day to text them back or sometimes forget to respond at all. Love you guys, you’re the real MVPs.
-My lovely menagerie of animals. There’s no love like theirs. And as I am a magnet for difficult creatures, I am grateful for all the lessons I learn in loving and caring for them. Everything I know about working with people I learned from loving the animals that others would give up on. Elliot. Ham. Cheese. Escobar. Pia. #SquadGoals
-A business that has grown so much over the last six months and keeps me so busy I hardly have time to keep up with this blog. (But don’t worry, I’m not giving up on this blog. No way, no how.) I’m eternally grateful for the endless support I’ve received and all of the people who have appeared or reappeared in my life exactly when they needed to. It honestly feels a little like seeing my life flash before my eyes in reverse except I’m not dying. This journey of starting and managing a business has really reaffirmed for me that one of the best pieces of advice I could ever give is to be kind to everyone you meet and always do your best to do right by them. When you need it most, you’ll see those efforts repaid tenfold. Twentyfold. One hundredfold.
-The new faces and friends I’ve met over the past six months. Before starting my business, it felt like my circle had grown to capacity and stabilized. People would leave, people would join, but it was stable. Little did I know that a circle actually has the endless potential to grow and expand, to include new connections, new friends, and new partners. I’ve been blessed beyond measure to have already found so many wonderful, wonderful people to add to my circle.
-My writing group who is helping me whip Shadow of the Magician into fighting shape. It’s going to be done guys. Done soon and for real this time. This is the last time around and I couldn’t be prouder, even though half the time I feel like giving up and throwing in the towel because this book has been so damn hard and has taken so many years of my life. But what keeps me going is that one day I hope to point to it and say, This was the book that made me. This was the book that taught me to write and to write well. This was the book that changed everything.
-Being alive at this moment in time. (You can read this in Gary Vee’s voice) Seriously, we are so blessed to be alive right now. For all the terrible stuff that happens, for all that we feel that social media and the internet are ruining our lives, there has never been another time where we have had so much control over our own futures and had so much ability to shape our own destiny. It is absolutely magical that I can turn on my phone, select a podcast, and have the wisdom of the world’s best teachers delivered to me on-demand. I can learn about any subject I want to, any subject at all, and all I need is a wifi connection. Our potential for growth and development are limitless and it’s because we are lucky enough to be alive right now. Not one hundred years ago. Not a thousand. Right now. And if that doesn’t give you perspective and make you fucking grateful, I don’t know what will.
To close out, I hope you have a wonderful Thanksgiving and use this day as an opportunity to make gratitude a lifestyle choice, not a momentary celebration.
Oh and one more thing: Be Safe, Skip the Salad, Eat the Damn Pie.
