The STAGE of your mind...

No one has a perfect family... NO ONE!  That is right, even that family you "think" is all together.   This may come as a shock to you, but they have problems too!

With that said, today I want to express appreciation for my family.  First I am grateful for my family of origin.  From all of them I learned to love deeply, forgive quickly, eat nurishing food, enjoy treats, laugh, sing, dance, play, chill, decorate, and feed an army.  Some of my most cherish and some of my saddest memories stem from my family of origin.  But all of those rolled together make me.  And lately, I am learning to love and embrace who I have become AND who I am becoming.  I don't mean it in a prideful way at all (I am my WORST critic)...but I think I am pretty great!

Secondly, I am thankful for the family I married into.  I married into this wonderful family.  My husband is one of eight children.  They support each other through trials and celebrations.  They love and reach out to each other.  They are amazing!  When I married my sweetheart, I really received a wonderful blessing in gaining his family.

Finally, I am thankful for the man who gave me... Our family.  I am thankful for this little piece of heaven.  I recognize how blessed I am.  I know, I see that circumstance has not rained this blessing upon everyone.  I feel so undeserving of the blessings, but I am so grateful for them.  So very grateful.

What are you grateful for?  Whom are you grateful for?  That is my challenge to you this weekend.  Really ponder and contemplate what you are grateful for.  Embrace the goodness in your life.  Your mind is a stage and it can only entertain one thing at a time.  If you fill that stage with the praise of gratitude to God, or the universe...or whatever you want to attribute (for me it is God)...if you fill your mind with gratitude for your ability to love, breath, dream, create, reach, stretch, strengthen others...etc... then there starts to be less and less room for the depression and the sorry for myself feelings (I have been there...two parents buried in 3 1/2 years...I HAVE been there).  But because I have wallowed in my own self pity, I can testify that when I fill the stage of my mind with gratitude I vanquish the darkness.  And let me tell you...THAT FEELS GOOD!

Changing the world...ONE letter at a time!