feeling grateful

Today, I am grateful. Today, I give gratitude to everything that has happened in my life to get me to where I am, right now. Today I am tired. After only a few hours sleep last night, I awake to strong coffee and a feeling of optimism. A feeling of acceptance that I am tired and I will sleep today when the kids go down for their normal rest time.

In my life today, I believe that everything happens for a reason. For example, I set up my spiritual altar a few weeks ago in a very special room. I cleansed it, set my crystals and my altar items where I felt they were most effective for my readings and meditation and proceeded to light a charcoal tablet. Nobody ever told me that they sparked up big time! Here I was, holding it between my fingers with a lighter underneath it, ready to place it in my censer. Off it went...spat and fizzed everywhere, I threw it, down on my altar and let it burn a whole in my brand new silk altar cloth. I had purchased the cloth that day, I had travelled over to the other side of town to grab it and it looked rather pretty on my new altar. Well, after I managed to throw the charcoal in my censer (not sure how I did it now, think I burnt my fingers!), I sat there, looking at the cloth. I was a little "oh shit, that's bloody new, it's got a farking hole in it now, drats"....then I stopped. Mary sat beside me and laughed. She didn't say a word. And then all of a sudden, my feeling of liking new and pretty things flooded back from my past and a feeling I hadn't felt for a while was there. I recognized it and it was quite a horrible feeling! "I can't go back", I thought! Then, I snapped out of it, I too found myself shrugging my shoulders and laughing. Then I thought, "There is a reason this has happened! I will always remember this moment and look at my altar cloth and laugh about the incident with the charcoal, something I hadn't used before!" That's what everything is all about. Things may not always look "pretty" and sometimes it gives them character when they're a bit flawed!

Coming from a home where everything was in its place, everything was labelled, even down to the different coloured dots on Dad's tools in his garage to protect them if they were stolen seems luducrious to me now, I see the paranoia in my childhood. He'd take photographs of everything he owned so that if anything was ever stolen, he knew that the cops would have a picture of what the item was that was missing. Of course, nothing was ever stolen and these pictures sat in an album or box or wherever Dad decided to keep them.

How about the sugar bowl? Dad was convinced that Mum would turn the writing out that said "SUGAR" just to piss him off. He apparently didn't like the font style on the ceramic bowl. Or the time where he'd smoke cigarette after cigarette and one day leaving his packet on the bench, a pen was pointed toward it and him going off his rocker because he thought Mum was having a "go" at him about leaving the packet there. Again, paranoia.

Can you possibly imagine, being brought up in a family so anal, so paranoid, so critical, so negative, how on earth could that possibly rub off onto me in my young life? Well it did and for years I was a mess, pot smoking, alcohol drinking, boyfriend after boyfriend, heavy make-up wearing, bleached hair, drawn in eyebrows mess....

So today, do you know what I'm truly grateful for? I'm truly grateful for the fact (and I fully accept) that I was a mess...and that I did some of those things and that I've come out the other side, free as a bird, respecting nature for all of its beauty, optimistic, loving, caring and the best mother I can be to my children. I'm also a fantastic partner now! I walk down the street smiling at others, even if they don't smile back. I feel alive! I feel free! I feel amazing that I can sit in my spiritual room, meditate and read and heal others!

I loved my Dad. And I still do! He is with me now, through all of my readings. He helps me and is a strong Guide. He too was psychic. And he is VERY SORRY. He's talked to me many times about the pain he put my family through. I feel sorry for him and sad that he never really grasped onto the great things that "could have been" in his life - he chose to live his life in misery, in sadness and in depression. He chose to hate people. He chose to have conditional love for his children. When I was diagnosed with an anxiety disorder in 2006 and chose to get better and cure myself, I chose to let the anger go with my Dad. He did the best he could do at the time. I FORGAVE him, I won't forget but I FORGIVE, for myself and my own wellbeing.

We can be faced with the most horrible of circumstances and still be pessimistic, we can be faced with something horrible and still choose bitterness. My word for the day, CHOICE. We all have a choice on how to live. So many people tell me I have a GIFT when I read for others. It's not a GIFT. Everyone has this ability. Everybody. I just CHOOSE to tap into it and shake everything else off, live simply and respect Mother Earth and spend time in it for my soul. Whatever lessons we don't learn now, we'll learn them in our next life, and our next life after that and so on...we will live on, and on and on...

So today, I'm grateful for my Guides, for the Archangels, for the Goddesses and Gods for making me the person I am. Without them, I wouldn't be where I am today. I am grateful for my beautiful, healthy children and also my loving and supportive partner for accepting all that I am and supporting every road I have travelled and continue to travel.

And to all of you who are reading this, you have a CHOICE on how to live. Don't get caught up in consumerism and "things", get caught up in your own soul and what your true calling is, we all have one, work out how you can be the best person you can be, not just for others but mainly for YOURSELF and your own HAPPYNESS! And marvel in nature, enjoy the warm sun on your face, watch the Moon, enjoy the air on your face, smell the ocean, watch a burning fire, walk on the grass in the morning when the sun is rising and feel the cold dew on your feet, enjoy the sunsets and go and hug a tree, notice the feelings within yourself when you do these beautiful things, be peaceful with all on Earth and with your own Spirit.

You can't change your past but you can choose to live SIMPLY and live in the Now. Life isn't difficult. It is simple. It's the way you think and choose to handle those difficult situations that make the difference and how you live.