Lessons, Balance and Gratitude

With infinite optimism do I approach this day and every day as the year of 2008 comes to a close. It’s been one hell of a ride I have to say but I’m grateful to see 2008 go. Odd years, for some reason, seem to be the best for me as long as I can remember. I hope that’s the case for 2009. 2008 has brought me more intriguing and interesting lessons than any year of my life and I’m deeply grateful for the opportunity to have learned. I’m hopeful this next year won’t find any particular themes of lessons repeating for me. I think I’m really ready to move on to new things, new thoughts, new friends and new experiences.

This past year have brought me a great number of things. One of the most important was learning who my real friends are, meeting new friends and having some pretty amazing guides cross my path and infuse my thinking with new energy. I find as the year closes, all manner of expression of art seems to take more of a focus…the poets, the writers, the artists, music, lyrics, sculpture…these are the folks that bare their souls to the world in one way or another and teach us all that its okay to be real, its okay to be authentic. It doesn’t matter if people don’t like you or if they can’t understand what you stand for…such thoughts can never take away from who you are just as a compliment doesn’t make you any greater than you already are.

Striking a balance every day as you live is also something I learned this year. The human mind and heart can withstand only so much before it breaks. But, when it breaks even that can be magic because then you can begin again. Pain is not the enemy…it’s a part of life and its only through the experience of pain that you really come to understand how wonderful joy is or serenity even. The cure for pain, I always have said is…let it get you…let it hit you squarely between the eyes if necessary and then just don’t panic while it permeates your being and then begins to leave you. I think of pain as something that helps to define joy and happiness like the dark helps to define the light and vice versa. You can’t know one without the other…so, embrace instead of run from it and you can always heal, move back to your center and grasp the gravity of the lesson so that type of pain doesn’t continually repeat.


Another way to restore sanity and centeredness in your life if you find yourself struggling is gratitude and appreciation. Turn your gratitude or appreciation towards people, nature, animals, art in all of some of its forms and realize as much as this world is full of dark, the light does dwell there too. Be brave and peaceful today and every day!