My dear friend, Phil Gerbyshak, started posting about gratitude again on his personal Facebook page. He has a long-standing gratitude practice that in the chaos of this year got set aside. I love reading his posts and look forward to his smiling face, mug of coffee, and morning musings. His posts part of my morning ritual.
With the Thanksgiving holiday here in the U.S. on Thursday, I thought I would share my own feelings about gratitude and what I am grateful for here on the blog.
As I am starting to finish up my full book draft, I found myself calling this year the Giant Dumpster Fire of 2021. At least to me, it hasn’t been significantly better than 2020, even as we are able to go out and mingle carefully, which I have enjoyed tremendously.
However, the menace of this invisible thing and the lingering trauma of the pandemic will be with us for years. Still, there are many, many things I am grateful for:
I am grateful my decade-long relationship with Carol Roth and being the editor of this blog. It gives structure to my life as an entrepreneur, and an additional predictable revenue stream.
I am grateful for my sunny and quiet apartment. I have everything I want and need, and even during stay at home, I didn’t want to be anywhere else.
I am grateful for the friends I have had for 20 and even 40 years. When I think about knowing someone for that long, I almost can’t process it, but I am truly grateful for it.
I am grateful for the Long Room networking group. I love every one of these beautiful people and look forward to seeing them every month.
I am grateful that my parents are still alive and are in good health.
I am grateful that I get to work with amazing professionals in my business and help them find their right next steps in their careers. Sometimes, I help them see possibilities when they think there aren’t any, and that makes all the challenges worthwhile.
I am grateful for Wi-Fi and online exercise classes. I have tried things I never would have done if I had to go to a studio and people would see how ungraceful I actually am. (Online belly dancing classes are a killer ab workout, btw. SO fun.)
I am grateful for my fabulous collection of art supplies. The colors of the pencils, pastels, and watercolors and textures and sizes of my various papers spark my imagination.
I am grateful for all of my musical instruments, although at the moment I am only dusting them. But they feel like friends and my life would feel empty without them. Maybe when my book is done I’ll get back to playing them…
I am grateful for my health – mental and physical. That truly is the most important thing. You can fix anything else if you have your health.
I always want to spell grateful as great-full, because somehow that seems to fully express gratitude for me. It is expansive and delicious, and I want to be full of that great feeling.
Wishing you a lovely Thanksgiving holiday.
