Mmmmm gratitude…..

Love in action.

A connection to the truth. A connection to ourselves. 

To see what is and not the things we make up in our minds.

My personal development experience actually started with gratitude.

Over a decade ago I found myself in a place where my family was in a deep crisis.

I discovered my oldest son was addicted to heroin, cocaine, and had been smoking marijuana since he was fourteen.

My next child- my daughter found out she was pregnant with a special needs child and was encouraged to abort the baby because they believed that she would be born completely deformed. 

My third child was being threatened to be kicked out of school because of behavioral issues. 

And I looked at my beautiful fourth child who was four years old and wondered how I was going to screw him up too.

You see I didn’t just consider motherhood a “role,” I identified it as my whole existence.

I remember the quote, “No other success can compensate for failure in the home,” looping over and over in my mind. And it was evident that I was indeed a failure (in my mind).

I was in a deep depression and couldn’t see the light. 

I felt hopeless, defeated, and broken.

And I had convinced myself that my children would be better off being raised by another person.

Thankfully I had the impression to get on my knees and plead with my creator to help ease my heart.

I remember asking for forgiveness and a way out of this terrible situation.

And I then distinctly remember hearing one word ….”gratitude.”

And I am going to be honest, when I first heard that word I was pissed. I mean I had bore my soul and didn’t God just hear how terrible life was? Why wasn’t he soothing my heart and assuring me that I was indeed justified for feeling so lousy? 

But I had heard that voice and that was enough to know that I was important enough to stick around for a while. 

I slowly started to open my eyes and see the beauty around me. I started to notice the beautiful mountains outside of my windows. 

“Thank you for the mountains God. Thank you for these eyes that can see those mountains.”

I started to notice the way my four year old would say, “Mom…(sigh)…I wub you,” at least a dozen times per day. 

I started to notice the laughter on a school playground, and when I heard a song I noticed how I felt it throughout my whole body. 

“Thank you God for my ears so I can hear the love from my sweet boy and from the children on the playground.”

Each day I would see more, feel more, and experience more connection to my truth because I felt gratitude for what “is” and not the made up stories of my past. 

“Gratitude” offers a pathway back from the disconnect we feel in our lives in

separation from ourselves, and others.

When we are in gratitude we are indeed practicing love in action. 

It is an opportunity to live in the present moment and remember that we have everything we need, and everything is at peace and in harmony as it should be. 

And we start with what we perceive as good, because it is easiest to do that. When we are in a very dark place, it is important to notice anything….everything that we can start to remember what is, instead of continually dwelling on what isn’t. 

As we move to the various levels of gratitude we can start to shift into gratitude 2.0….

This is where we start to see everything that occurs in our lives as purposeful, good, and we can lean into love instead of fear. 

I like to start with the “shouldn’ts in my life.”

Since many of you have heard my story of sexual trauma let’s start there.

“I shouldn’t have been raped.”

Now that would make sense right? No one had the right to take advantage of a 15 and then a 17 year old girl and use her body for their own power and pleasure- right?

And yet…when I say the words, “I shouldn’t have been raped”…..I feel constriction, resistance to life and stay stuck in the energy of fighting against life in general. 

After I say these words, I then move into asking, “is this true”? 

At first I usually say, well heck yes, it is absolutely true….they shouldn’t have raped me. 

Okay but is it true that they didn’t rape me? 

No…it’s not true. I did indeed get raped. 

So as I relax into that knowledge that no amount of fighting and resisting will change it, I can open up to the understanding, acceptance and love that can be created in that moment. 

Can I love myself through this?

Can I move towards radical acceptance and compassion and forgiveness for a girl that was hurting after her parents’ divorce? A girl that didn’t have many skills for navigating the pain of what was occurring and so she turned to numbing, avoiding, and escaping? 

Can I love myself through this, I repeat over and over?

The kindest thing we can do for ourselves is to have radical acceptance for everything that happens in our lives. 

Yes- I can indeed love myself through this because I can step out of the judgment of whether or not that was a good or a bad thing. It simply was an occurrence in my life. One that allowed me the opportunity to practice more love than I had previously. One that allowed me to become empathetic with others, and one that connected me to so many women and wonderful people that are trying to make a difference. 

Should I have gotten raped? 

Yes because I was.

And through the action of love I can move into gratitude for myself and learn to see beyond the circumstances and into the learning, growth, and expansion that it provided me. 

Do you see how gratitude has the power when teamed up with forgiveness to set ourselves free? 

Free of the emotional baggage of yesterday.

Free of the judgment we placed on ourselves.

Free of shame, blame, and guilt.

This holiday season- I pray that we will all see what is and not what isn’t. The pressure to perform and get the season right- to live up to the expectations of parties, and presents, and gatherings. 

How about we simply remember how to connect? 

How to simply have deep gratitude for our circumstances right now. 

What we are all seeking during the holidays is to show gratitude to one another and make everyone feel important. 

Let’s remember what the season is about- and focus on that beautiful loving connection instead of worrying about the performance that the external world tells us is important. 

I do want to share with you an incredible opportunity this holiday season.

I am curating a small group of 8-10 to be beta testers for a new 12 week mastermind where we will be learning to master our inner world. 

We will be focusing on three different areas

-Learning the language of our bodies and understanding what they are telling us. We will start using them as an internal GPS instead of constantly shutting it down.

-Learning to navigate our intuition like a boss

-Mastering our emotions by utilizing a patent pending technology and 15 second voice analysis each day of the program. We use this data when we process each week. We can use our emotions as a superpower my friends!

-Then we move into slowly peeling the layers of the emotional baggage of yesterday. We will get some of those layers to slough off and expose the inner essence of what has always been.

-Last we will learn to perceive this world differently. I will help you put on a new pair of glasses so that gratitude 2.0 is easier and you start to show up and react differently to challenges and catch your “stories” before they start to shut you down. 

This program starts the first week of December and runs for 12 weeks. It also includes the technology and a 4 day/ 3 night retreat in southern Utah from Feb 2-5. 

I would be honored to have you join us. 

By being a part of the beta group- you will receive the full program but at ⅓ of the cost normally. 

Simply click on the link below to fill out an interest form (will take you five minutes), or message me on social media. 

CLICK HERE

Take care my friends. Gratitude is where it is at. Forgiveness and compassion take that gratitude and create magic in our internal world. 

You have Successfully Subscribed!