My life is generally a surprise, especially to me.

My life has been a series of changes every 6 months I am living in a new location and having to make new friends, deal with new everything. Some changes have been planned, others sporadic. For a period of time I had been telling myself that I have to just go with the flow and allow what will happen to happen. I am a firm believer that there is a divine plan that conspires to put me in situations I’m supposed to be in, meet people I am supposed to meet, and live in places where all those things will work together in cohesion. Since the last 2 years has been a complete flip from the consistency that was my life, a ton of losses and many wins, I decided that in order to not drown in sadness of the things I was losing that I would make it a point to acknowledge the things I still had and the new things I received, not only physical things.

It’s very easy to allow life to swallow you when it seems like everything is going wrong. The best thing I did for myself was make a conscious decision to find a little sweet spot on all the chaos that was my life. Kind of like a little dessert that I can have for myself to add a little bit of calm to the storm. Some people have self gifting days where they do simple gestures of appreciation for themselves to add happiness, which from time to time I do for myself just to love on myself and reward myself for making it through. But now, I am looking to seek the peace in all the dark spots. Meaning, as opposed to creating new loves, find the ones that are already there.

I want to allow myself to be gracious and show gratitude in my life because I never know what is going to build me, even if right now its breaking me. Gratitude journaling isn’t a new concept, but it has become a best practice for my daily living that has allowed me to see the little sparkles in the darkness, that at times, attempts to consume me.

Ok yes, at first it can really seem to be just another thing I have to remember to do, on top of all the other things I have to do, but the benefits are so amazing that I will continue to make time to do it. All the things that serve you deserve your attention. It allows me to look at life in a way that makes me appreciate the positive events in your life or the positive spiritual/emotional lessons learned throughout the day or week, depending on if your journaling daily or a few times a week. I have learned so much about myself through doing this process because I can clearly see the thing in life that are clearly important to me, allowing me a sense of clarity in my path. We focus so much so on the things that affect us negatively that we forget to acknowledge the little things that make us smile, even if its just briefly. I want more of those little moments so how can I crate them? First it is important to know what makes them, and do more of that thing, and less of the other stuff.

Help transform your thoughts by finding the positive side of negative situations by rewriting the script to your life. I have said many times before that you assign an emotion to a situation in your life. It is up to you to reassign an emotion to a “negative.” For instance, If you go on a date with a man and he never calls you again, its ok. The universe is protecting you from this man, be ok with people walking away. They are doing you a service, not a disservice.

So be thankful that the universe/God/ the forces etc are on your side by keeping people away who aren’t good for you.

The one thing I can say though is that I would suggest for starting point to go for depth over breadth. Elaborating in detail about a particular person or thing for which you’re grateful carries more benefits than a superficial list of many things. It allows you to relive that moment and recall exactly how you felt in that moment when its detailed, versus just skimming over the sensation. Life will hand you lemons, its up to you to decide if your going to suck them, make lemonade, make margaritas or if you are going to blend it with other fruits and make completely new flavored lemonades. Life will happen but your mindset determines how you are going to flow through life. Use this as a way to cultivate a greater sense of peace, happiness and optimism about your life.