Gratitude on the Journey

This month I wanted to write a little bit less about how difficult my journey to get on path is and instead focus more of how joyous the journey is of getting to where I need to be.  Sometimes I forget to live with gratitude for what I have, and without gratitude for what we have I truly believe that we will never have anything more.

I am blessed by the three beautiful creatures with which I share my world; my three precocious, beautiful, healthy boys.  I’m convinced that three more different creatures have never belonged to the same mother.  Each of them is quite spectacular in their own special way, and each of them brings a special kind of joy to my world that only they will ever be able to bring. 

My boys are my miracles.  I remember reading once that growing a baby inside of you and giving birth to that baby is the closest any of us will ever have to participate in a miracle and I believe it.  I find myself very often staring at the boys and thinking, those are my miracles.

Daniel is the oldest, he is undoubtedly my musician.  I couldn’t imagine Daniel ever focusing long enough on any one thing in his life until the day he discovered music and playing the guitar.  From the moment that Daniel picked up his first guitar there it was, focus.  For the first time in his 11 years of life, I saw that child gain focus on one thing.  He plays the guitar, self taught, and writes lyrics and music.  I don’t quite understand myself where that raw talent could possibly come from, but he’s quite talented, especially as a song writer.  Maybe one day he’ll let me blog some lyrics for you.

Then there’s Lucas; my wild child.  There isn’t a grown up in the world who can say no to my beautiful 5 year old.  He lives his life with reckless, fearless abandon (very loud abandon), and he loves the people in his life with the same intensity.  After Lucas spent his first weekend away from me (his first weekend with his father) in the middle of the night Lucas crawled into bed with me and whispered “Don’t talk mommy, I don’t want to hear anything, I just missed you too much and need to cuddle with you”.  He curled himself up right next to me and he kissed my cheek and tucked me in.  It was pure Lucas, he needed me far less at that point in my life than I needed him and I’m sure that with his special gift for loving the people around him, he knew that.

And then there’s my baby, Michael.  Michael is hard to describe other than to say his vocabulary at the age of three rivals that of most grown ups.   He’s incredible!  And the best thing about that vocabulary is that it comes with a giant sized imagination and memory.  When Michael and I are alone together he regales me with the most far fetched stories; my favourite by far being those of his pet spider, Charlick, who lives in his room and sings to him at night.  Charlick has long baths with Michael and she washes her tummy and all eight of her legs, and at night when Michael cannot sleep Charlick scratches his back with all eight of her legs until he finally falls asleep.

So as you can see, the journey to get on path may be difficult at times and I don’t know where I’m going or where I need to be, but what I do have right now is so spectacular.  Sometimes I forget how blessed I am.  Remember last month I encouraged everyone to take moments to enjoy where you are on the journey to be on path, I forget to do that myself sometimes.  Being a person who always planned everything in her life, I’m afraid of not knowing how it is all going to work out for me.  Often I’m in such a hurry to find out how it will all transpire that I forget to stop and just enjoy right now.  Deep inside though I know that I am on my way to being on path and that easy or hard, this is just a part of my journey. Sending blessings to all of you, I hope that each of you is finding joy in your own journey.

Happy New Year

Happy New Year!

I feel blessed that I have the gift of a New Year to continue on my quest to get on path in my life.  Late in the year my Blackberry Messenger had a quote by the famous author Paolo Coelho, it was around not forgetting in 2012 that our dreams are not for sale.  Instead of making resolutions this year, I’ve simply resolved to get my life back on path and to remember that my dreams are valuable and that the only person who stops me from reaching for them is me.  I hope that this year instead of making resolutions in your own lives that you simply resolve to live the life that you were each meant to live authentically and to follow your own dreams. 

My own journey to get on path has sadly hit a bit of a derailment.  The place on my path where I am right now feels difficult, this isn’t the life that I imagined for myself and I’m still struggling with the fact that I am not entirely sure of what the future will look like for me.  Which of course tells me that I’m not on path; that right now my life feels awkward and I don’t feel like I’m at peace tells me that I’m far off path and the goal over the next month is to try to find a way to get back on.  For me that means yoga; an opportunity to rest my body and my mind and reconnect with my spiritual side.

Change in our lives can be conscious or unconscious and in the first few days of this year I had the opportunity to think about where I am in my journey and realized that I’ve changed quite significantly in the past two years.  Not all those changes have been for the better. I’ve lost some of my patience; not just patience with others but patience in my own self.  As someone who has always been rather pragmatic, I find that I’ve become “wishy-washy”; afraid of decisions, afraid of new challenges.  I’ve become so preoccupied with what I might do wrong or what I might miss that perhaps I’m missing out on entire opportunities that are coming into my life.  So I guess that a fresh new year is the perfect time to sit and start to think through all the changes and take charge of those that need to be corrected and to embrace those that are keeping me on the route to being on path.

I guess that life is a complicated thing overall and each of us are on a journey to be on path. Regardless of where you are on your journey to get on path you need to be able to enjoy the journey.  Today, wherever you are on your path,   keep going.  There is meaning and purpose in your journey, don’t forget to keep looking at where you are and what there is to be learned from that moment.  Let go of fear, let go of doubt, open yourself up to being on path!