Today is a day for giving thanks.  I woke from my bed this morning feeling emotionally challenged. In my daily practice of gratitude. I thought about Thanksgiving.  In that moment, I choose to see Thanksgiving for what it means to me.

I’m not American and I often forget about it until the week before.  However, I saw my gratitude for my life in all its iterations. Whether, in its present state of being up or down, life going the way I want and or not at all how I’d like.  Either way, I am grateful.

I’m grateful for the amazing opportunities this year. Grateful for love. Being in a relationship, which at times was beautiful and other times not.  Grateful for learning to keep my heart open, when at times I wanted to put it in a vault, slam the door and keep it there – Thank you

I’m grateful for having the opportunity to expand my capacity to give, receive love and be open in ways that I never experienced as possible.

I’m grateful to have loved people who have not always loved me back the way I wanted, yet loved me the way they could. (I’ve been that person. I now have a view from both sides of the love table.) I am thankful for my family. For the love, I have for my brothers though their love seems so distance.

I am grateful for the people and friendship that are no longer physically present in my life. Friends who have supported me with my dreams no matter how dreamy. When times were not so good or great, you will never be forgotten and the memories we created will live in my cells – for they have helped me grow.

I am grateful and thankful for my health for Diabetes even though I wish it were not there.  I own it, I accept it and I will manage it completely.  For the pain of exercise walking/running moving the tool which is my body and being able to forgive myself when I didn’t.  For being able to make myself right where as before I would have trashed myself for failing and given up altogether.

“I’m grateful to know love’s secret. To receive love it must be given with no thought of its return. Love is a gift that no return is demanded.”  Og Mandino

For my economic challenge, I am grateful for learning and putting into practice the understanding that money is a tool and it is not an actual measure of my worth.

I am grateful for all the books, that I’ve read and for the authors, teachers, lovers, friends for if your dream did not manifest, I could not expand.

The history of Thanksgiving might not be so relevant these days.  However, the sentiment is still important.

Giving thanks. I give thanks for the power to love, think, will, and laugh, imagine, create, plan and speak.  I give that for choosing to honor my gifts knowing that I can choose to cry for my unfulfilled dreams, let failure beat me down, let circumstances trample my self-esteem, sacrifice my personal potential for the illusion of security, dishonor my individuality, deem myself incorrect and or I can misuse my talents or hide them in a trunk (Hell No).  I am grateful for the knowing and the actions that I can take.  Thank you for my humanity and the humanity of us all on this planet.

So on this Thanksgiving Day, If you wish, find one thing that you can be authentically thankful for and be thankful and then share it with another soul.

Noreen Sumpter

Personal Life Coach