Giving thanks....

I’ve been pondering this notion of ‘thanksgiving’…of giving thanks. I was wondering to whom I am giving thanks?

It may well be that many give thanks to their god for their lives. Others don’t have anyone to thank in that there is no god in their lives. And still others feel that they have nothing to give thanks for. If anything, they’re angry, resentful and filled with fear.

For me, I am mindful less of giving thanks and much more of taking this time to pause and take an extended look at my life. In this pause is an awareness that I have created it all – the ‘good’ and the ‘bad’ – and in that awareness, I am mindful of the opportunities for discovery, growth, evolution and potential that my life is a living invitation to consider.

In the moment of this pause, perhaps more than anything else, I am aware that I am loved. I have surrounded myself with people who welcome me into their lives, who value my presence in it and who both welcome and accept me as I am.

I am aware that those who I call family are healthy, well, vibrant, playful and full of potential! Each is their own unique person, with their unique way of moving through their world. The measure of my appreciation of them in this uniqueness means that there are times when their lives include me and other times when their lives are unfolding on a holodeck that does not overlap with mine. It is these streams of new life that make my own that much more interesting.

I am aware that my life and that of the people I love is big, expansive and ever-changing. In this constant flow and flux, there is great joy for me! There are times when the content of that flow and flux can bring me tears, and there are far more times that it brings me a great sense of adventure. In this immense Space, potential unfolds..and as I face into it, I always become more.

I am aware that I have created my life from my choices: from my willingness to listen and to reveal; from my vulnerability and my strength; from my courage and my fear. And it is all mine! Not one moment do I hold as anyone else’s responsibility or creation. Not one breath do I take that I believe anyone else has forced me to breathe…or prevented me from doing so.

I am aware that I choose and then choose again, trusting that each choice is the ‘right’ one for that moment. I have discovered that to be bold in living from one breath to the next; to be unwilling to be bound by who I was yesterday or five minutes ago, is to be constantly in the invitation to be fully alive. As much as this can have its challenges for us all, I am also aware that those who are in my life soon give themselves permission to claim this for themselves. And in that choice, they too become more.

I am aware that my life is full of rich, powerful, compelling and life-enhancing conversations. Conversations with people with whom I am deeply intimate. Conversations with strangers who quickly become so much more. Conversations with those new to my life and those long present. Conversations with individuals and with those who gather in small groups. Conversations that provoke and those that heal. Face-to-face, by email, on the phone….each one crackles with its immediate potential for life to be lived – fully and NOW.

In those rare and brief moments when I forget who I am…when I am lost in the fog of my unwillingness to own my life...a simple sound inside me becomes the pathway home. It is the sound of my own breath, moving in and out of my body. I surrender to it. I fall back into it, like welcoming arms ready to hold me and guide me and do for me what I cannot seem to do for myself. This sound fills my body, soothes my mind and lifts my spirit so that I am able to see beyond my own limitations. In that moment, I am above all that seems to bind me to what I am not, and I can find my way.

I am deeply appreciative of my life and all that graces its expression: the people, the events, the moments in time that linger and become the platform for more. I love and am loved. I am awake. I am willing and able. I expect my life to be a reflection of the rhythm of who I am…of the strength of my beating heart; of the pulse that guides all that flows through me; and most of all, of the connection that I am a living expression of - that connection to the essence of my being that allows it all to be as it is.

I am aware of and deeply value the godforce that I am in the world. I am also aware of the godforce that each of the others who surround me, in my life, also is in the world. I call. Some answer and some do not. And in it all, the godforce that I AM honors that in each of them.

I know that choosing, creates. I know that how I choose, creates my life. In this moment, I choose to recognize all that I have created and be at peace. What I now seek for myself in my world is to create a collective of others who recognize this in themselves and create a collective that is at peace with its own creations. In this, a new world unfolds. It is not about doing anything to the world that we have – it is about manifesting the one we desire.

Breathing is good….