Today I choose to sit in gratitude.

I am having to consciously chose to be grateful, in order to counter the other emotions I am experiencing and processing.  I am choosing to be grateful because I know that we can only be in one emotion at a time. We can run lots close together, but literally ONLY one at a time.

Why gratitude. Well mainly because what you focus on you feel.  And today I don’t want to feel sad, or angry or frustrated, or scared. I want to feel different.

On a personal note the past week has been quite tough, for a number of reasons. I have passed through a whole range of emotions, but I don’t want to stay in them. It is so important to honour and express your emotion – rather than to supress or deny it. So over the course of the past few days I have laughed. I have cried. I have been fearful.  But mainly I have chosen NOT to stay in any one of those states, mainly because it is not helpful – and most importantly – makes no difference to the outcomes.  Except perhaps to make you feel worse.

The key is not to get stuck in one overwhelming, negative emotional state.  It becomes a self-defeating exercise. If you believe everything is bad and negative, you will actively seek out all the bad and negative things to support your belief.  If you chose to believe that bad and negative things happen in amongst the good and the positive – you are less likely to become overwhelmed with layer upon layer of all the awful things that happen in the world.

I have to practice what I talk to people about, I am after all just a random human – being. Sometimes a human doing but mainly being.

So I try to be authentic, and to share my own and other peoples experiences to highlight that we are not alone in our thoughts and experiences. We never know who we offer a ‘virtual’ hand up to when we share -and that is why today I felt it important.

It is Father’s Day and there are quite rightly a ton of social media posts celebrating all the wonderful fathers of and no longer of this world.

I am writing this in a café whilst my mum visits my Dad a week into an unplanned hospital stay. Due to ongoing Covid restrictions – we are unable to visit, and due to internet restrictions unable to face time.  There are many who have gone before him and many others I have no doubt are in the midst of their own personal struggles.

So whilst I was processing out my personal frustration and fear and sadness, I also decided it was important that he already knows how much he is loved – this is one day of many and so to that end I wanted to focus on what I was grateful for – instead of what I don’t have and can’t do.

This then is hopefully to inspire anyone else who might be struggling to try and practice gratitude and see how it helps shift the feelings you may be experiencing.  So here – for today specifically is my list of things I am grateful for……

To still have an amazing dad in my life – not everyone gets to experience that at all.

To have a partner who is a great father to our children.

For every day that I have spent with those I love

For the friends who send me messages and keep me lifted

For the strangers who speak purely to connect

For the absolute raw beauty of nature that for me is a wonder and a lovely distraction

For the ability to read, and write and think – and for the opportunity to share with like and un-like minded souls

I chose & start everyday with gratitude. It has become a very helpful habit.

I hope in darker times as well as every day that you can also find at least one thing to be grateful for.