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Thankful and Grateful State of Mind

Today is hard for so many of my friends in the widowed community. I instantly wake and think of each of you, because I understand. I instantly think of my former life and this new life I have built and how though things have transcended and continue to keep going forward, I will never forget, I will never stop remembering and I will always love. For this, I have a thankful and grateful state of mind.

Having a thankful heart and a grateful state of mind in a season where it seems to be slammed down your throat can be very difficult. Know that you are being thought of today in each and every way.

As you go about the motions of this day, maybe slapping that smile on and sitting at a table where your loved one no longer sits – think of this! You are the example.

An example you didn’t want to be, but yet you are. So don’t pretend, be honest and open and today at that table speak loudly and boldly what you are thankful and grateful for. It is hard to find thankfulness and gratefulness in loss, in losing.

What you can be thankful for however, is the love that will not leave in the emotional, the life that was lived while they lived and the path up ahead that you now get to take them on. Instead of letting the sadness overcome today, I want you to sit in a thankful and grateful state of mind and speak one thing you will give thanks for in this day, in this season. Hold onto that one thing and that hope for what is ahead. Believe in yourself and when others try to bring that down, you just speak boldly, “I am not ok, but I will be. I will carry my love and loss forever with me and that is my thankful and grateful state of mind. They will not be forgotten, they will come along with me, as I find, care for and embrace this new self…that I get to decide for me.”

It is your state of mind and even in their absence you get to speak their name or share a memory. Who cares if those around you are uncomfortable…remember you are the example and it could just as easily be one of them at your table, you gets catapulted into this unknown. So, if that does happen, they will then lean on you as the example. So in all of the hard of this day, see how you are others hope, pillar, source of strength as they watch you walk through something they can not imagine or even stop to set in your shoes. At the table today, you get to speak out and say you are grateful for the person who used to sit beside you and how they will continue to be a source of your strength as you keep going.

In a season that is so solidified by tradition, the loss you are feeling is less than traditional. So you get to start a new one. One of honor, that you can say to your love, “This is how I choose to honor you this day”. How do you want to honor them and yourself today? Think on that. Ponder that and then go and do it. I honor John today, by speaking his name, remembering him and our love and I honor myself by having a grateful heart for all that I continue to come through and that my eyes do not stay settled too long or get lost in the hardships that can destroy my hopes. I set my eyes on things much greater and bigger than me and thank God every single day for the blessings I allowed myself to receive through times where hopelessness tried to keep me down. Celebrate you and your triumphs and crush through the hopeless state of mind….running towards your thankful and grateful state of mind.

Happy Thanksgiving my friends.

Tanya Smith

 

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