Thanksgiving is a universal reminder time of thanks. One way that often takes a back seat is to love ourselves.
That way, we have more room to give love and pass on the abundance to family, neighbors, and others on our journey path.
Loving ourselves means forgiving ourselves and others, like God forgave us. We want to feel grateful.
If you’re stuck, maybe ask: what am I hung up on that I don’t have?
Because we have so much more to be grateful for than what we don’t have.
Our brains easily fool us into focusing on the wrong and negative things.
And part of what we don’t have that we think we want right now is going to be what gives us a better future.
Because life is rigged in our favor in our belief and faith.
This isn’t something we’re born with knowing, but over time and experience you grow wiser and the knowing inside you becomes more clear.
Daily thought choices determine our future view of ourselves, our lives, success, and happiness.
Thanksgiving quote:
“Every time you are tempted to react in the same old way, ask if you want to be a prisoner of the past or a pioneer of the future.” – Deepak Chopra
Even though none of us know the future outcomes no matter what age we are.
But the answers are inside us waiting for the ripe-ready reveal time to birth.
That’s a spiritual way to look at it and how I see it from my reflecting back lens of life experiences. I didn’t see that back in my 30s (so don’t worry if you think you’re a late bloomer).
It’s a gradual shift like time.
And over time, you can realize nothing in your past was wasted. The hard things you went through made it easier for you now or in the future. And the dumb things done (we all have them!) made you smarter now.
It’s in our future where we get new revelations.
And most of our answers to our life’s purposes are already inside us.
We first have to grow up, learn to change our auto-responses, and heal from our past hurts that will help us.
…That’s how this one Life we get to live keeps getting better, and our perspectives change because we allow them to with our open curiosity.
The famous saying is that this (as in life) is not a dress rehearsal.
But for those of us who believe in Heaven, it is.
We’re here for experiences and growth.
And as we gather more experiences, we learn and grow. That’s the purpose of this life as I believe. And we do that by ourselves and with others.
And if you want to make this a new season different than past ones, then dig deeper in the well for your answers.
They’re there! 🎯
You only stay stuck when you box yourself in… I remember years ago where I spent a couple Thanksgivings abroad. It’s always a weird feeling because that special Thursday is only celebrated in America.
Initially I felt I was missing out. But then, it made me realize I could be thankful anywhere I was.
Thanksgiving holiday is not about the food… entirely (as I’m from the foodie world 🥘). But getting away from the holiday food traditions helped me to break out of the “this is how it is.”
And that breaking out allowed for embracing growth in future seasons. And not just for new situations, but also a new hopeful attitude.
I found early-on in my journey that my ego blocked these types of beliefs in my auto-thoughts. And I allowed it to because I didn’t know any better.
The brain would serve up the woes-me thoughts for what I didn’t have and wanted.
Part of the process and journey was learning this unhelpful built-in ego feature as a first step.
I wish it didn’t take me beyond 35 years to learn, but I’m glad it didn’t take another 35 years (or never) 😉
And breaking through, when I could tap into my deeper compassionate and feeling sides, that’s when I got more breakthroughs.
…I was less judgmental about myself and more forgiving that projected out to the world… to judge less and forgive more.
Imagine if that radiating energy caught on in most of us. It would be one big ball of massive fire in the world! ☄️ We could use that energy to help and grow our world filled with challenges.
But starting with ourselves is the first and most important place to begin, and keep daily renewing…
Breaking down self-judgment walls and bringing back self-love keeps us growing.
…It helps you and me see better.
Especially if you didn’t feel the love when you were younger or in your more recent situational past.
…When I felt the self-pity from setbacks in life, I bounced back by finding my gratitude and giving spirit (thanksgiving)
Giving can be sharing, donating time or money, providing, spending time, encouraging words, and sending positive loving vibes to the world. 💕
It can be as simple as recognizing that it’s not all about you or me.
It can be about paying forward gratitude for the blessed things I already have or experiences I had.
Getting sensitized and feeling again knocked me out of gray confusion clouds and into sunnier skies.
We are meant to keep growing forward in life so we don’t put ourselves back in the shoes of our former selves. Been there done that.
In today’s moments, we can acknowledge that we’re in a better place by finding examples from our past.
Comparing our new level today with our past level gets us to our next better level of tomorrow.
Proof of this is easy to find for all of us…
If you go waaayyy back to the past as kids (or young adults we were called) that none of us are anymore… back then, we were more impressionable as our younger selves.
We had to get everything okay’d before proceeding as how culture and life is setup.
As pre-adults, we didn’t have the means to do the things we can do today on our own.
And if we did do them then, we’d probably have gotten lost and would be ungrateful as we didn’t fully understand what we had in front of us.
We were still developing our adult minds.
Today as found former-lost baby sheep, we have wiser perspectives to draw from. 🐑
Congratulating our growth is one small step and happy way we can be thankful for this season in life even if it doesn’t look anything like we hoped for!
The focal point sign that we can dwell on is “you’re here”… and it’s years later and you no longer have the same problems you had back there.
So you could come up with a list of what you’ve arrived at today.
Imagine if you had the same challenges and choices you had as a young adult, you’d be so frustrated because you’re no longer with that same mindset. But you’re not there, so that’s one thing you can be thankful for.
And those little thanks help you to embrace where you imperfectly are.
We’re still and always will be dynamic works-in-progress.
Thankfully so because that means we’re alive! 🤸🏻
And collecting up all those fond past memories that you can re-live in present moment happiness helps to keep us rejuvenated.
Then in the tough times (the ones that so blind-shockingly happened), those help grow us into better people.
We become more deeply grateful for what we have… maybe not immediately, but we end up developing stronger character in survival and in the process to get to the other side. 🌈
Even wasted time we feel now was well spent because we learned the lesson to never go there again. And now we don’t have to painfully back track and re-learn the same lesson.
And all of us are walking examples of lessons learned.
We can keep going, getting inspired daily, and FEELing-thinking our way to our thanksgiving.
Holidays like Thanksgiving are welcomed reminders that give us reason to be thankful.
…And to say “thank you” more often.
Focus on “you.”
See yourself through others.
And practice old-fashioned manners and simple Thanksgiving sayings like please that never gets old and goes a long way.
