Thankful

You are the sky. Everything else - it's just the weather.

-Pema Chodron

Today I vow to let myself feel my joy and my pain. I vow to use life’s frustrations and challenges to lift and move me farther down my path, all the while carrying the knowledge they are beautiful opportunities to practice what I already know. Inherent in this, a deep knowing persists that all struggles will pass, leaving me with only the gift of having grown because of their presence.

I give thanks for these lungs that breathe, this heart that beats, and the heart that loves. I give thanks for eyes that see, ears that hear, and the legs that move me through my world. I give thanks to all who have touched my life. Those who have lingered, and those who shimmered and flashed ever so brightly while streaking across my life like a shooting star. I love you all.

Today, I will see love reflected in the smile of a stranger. I will be aware of the nourishing air behind the leaves’ subtle whisper. I will bless the quenching water as it kisses the shore. I will merge with the warm light which gives rise to all, and I will be the flowers’ brilliance. I will cry, smile, laugh, and strive to love myself and my world completely as I let myself deeply feel all that I am, was, and will ever be.

Today, I will simply listen.  

(Excerpted from A Gentler Path)