It’s Thanksgiving here in Canada this weekend.
A time when families come together presumably with feelings of gratitude.
If you’re someone like me who’s been looking within to follow the beat of your own drum, it’s often accompanied with some tension (to put it mildly) from your “family of origin”.
Last year, Thanksgiving was challenging at our family cottage shared among my 5 siblings & our families.
Our beloved cottage of 30+ years where I feel thankful beyond words to have so many wonderful memories – it was the first time I wondered if I might never come back.
A year ago today, the only way for us to sit down together for Thanksgiving dinner at our cottage was for myself and my children to sit outside due to one family member’s opposing opinion.
Differences of opinion are inevitable, but when they arise from fear – complaining, blaming, demanding, imposing, and lecturing behaviour shows up loudly.
It’s not the first time this sibling and I have found ourselves with strong opposing views creating tension.
So many families these days have been torn apart when opposing views create painful trauma and a need for forgiveness that never comes.
Sometimes on this journey of awakening we simply grow apart because the vibrational gap between love and fear are too great.
It’s the hardest to accept when it’s with our families.
There’s a cost of trusting your own inner voice.
As much as I love being here, if I can’t find gratitude amidst the messiness of our differences too much is lost.
It’s the quality of our connections that make witnessing beauty worthwhile.
Our judgments can destroy connections – even the most beautiful sunset no longer feels magical when this kind of energy is in the air.
How do you put aside what doesn’t feel right inside you with the people you care about when you know they are feeling the exact same way, only the other way around?
Both of us are right in our own minds.
Here’s what has helped me greatly: understanding the divine purpose of relationships.
Marianne Williamson shares this powerful wisdom here with Oprah describing a powerful metaphor of plugging “our lamp” in to connect the light within us.
There’s a profound shift when you recognize and step into the knowledge that any relationship is “not about me – it’s about us”.
Specifically, it’s about what each of us is capable and chooses to bring – energywise.
You must take sole responsibility for the energy you are bringing to any relationship for it to be fabulous.
Let go of what the other person brings! You have NO CONTROL here and thinking you do creates the problem.
You cannot choose how someone else shows up as it’s coming from their mind which needs their control not yours.
If someone is triggering you with their opposing energy, it’s a call within to exercise patience, and seek understanding not necessarily agree, but to find your own inner serenity.
The gratitude becomes for the lesson we’re being asked to learn whenever a conflict arises.
Gratitude for the inner work of growing is right here in front of you to claim.
How to Harness the Power of Gratitude
Gratitude completely shifts your state of being. Your vibration increases to see someone from a different place.
It’s easy to feel gratitude when everything is going well. When things are not, that’s when gratitude can show you its true power.
The way to the other side of any conflict even with a family member without grudges, guilt or resentment begins by giving the hard thanks that this person is my teacher in this moment for my soul’s development.
It has nothing to do with who’s right.There’s nothing to be fixed, justified or changed.
Can I find the place in me that is thankful for this opportunity even when it doesn’t feel good?
How can I show up to be the person I want to become?
It takes practice to wade through the ego’s reactive emotions that arise with “how could you…”, “I can’t believe you…”, “you need to understand…”
Surrender these thoughts and the magic begins.
Have you ever noticed that the people who have been through the WORST life has to offer have the most gratitude?
Their experience of pain allows them to savour the smallest pleasure.
This 10 minute Ted talk from Louis Schwartzberg was passed to me by a friend who embodies gratitude after she endured horrific unimaginable conditions escaping Vietnam during their war.
Louis recently released his latest documentary Gratitude Revealed that he introduced in his Ted Talk.
It was beautiful : )
I was not surprised to discover his parents were both Holocaust survivors spending several years in Auschwitz.
He grew up in a home where waking up and being able to open your eyes was a gift.
Most of us have not experienced the unimaginable, and we’ve been given so much that we take for granted.
I need my own reminders to live in gratitude – I believe we all do.
It’s the powerful secret to creating what you desire by raising your vibration to a state of feeling good at the soul level.
It miraculously creates more of what feels better.
Louis’s other powerful documentary Fantastic Fungi makes the connection between nature and spirit that can’t help but leave you feeling a total sense of AWE.
This Thanksgiving here at our cottage, gratitude fills my soul.
I can choose to put our differences aside and simply avoid talk of certain topics. That’s what works in my situation.
Yours may require something different.
Finding a way to your own healthy boundaries is up to you to create not for someone else to change their mind.
Gratitude paves the way to create your happiest, most fulfilling relationships.
Introducing a private Facebook Community … Conscious Leaders Seeking Fabulous Relationships
I’ve resisted starting a community Facebook group for so long (censorship here & the way social media can be misused feels out of alignment), but I’m practicing surrendering into gratitude for what it does provide.
I’m looking to connect Conscious Leaders wanting to grow their soul to create Fabulous Relationships that feel truly aligned.
Is that you?
Every week I’ll be sharing soul wisdom for you to BE YOU and take your relationships to a new level of love.
Do you want to connect with soul-minded friends?
Join here to be part of this exciting new soul community.
Finally… the view that had my family banished outside last Thanksgiving wondering how we would navigate going forward?
We had the best view.
Nature’s beauty provides instant gratitude in its quiet reminder that the same life force that created what you see is the same life force living in you.
The relationship growing with this life force creates the beautiful relationships you most desire..
May gratitude fill your soul today and all days.
