What's Your Story? (About Thanksgiving and Everything!)

*I published this last year, and think it is a great reminder of how the world changes, but also stays the same. So, we have another great opportunity to truly be grateful. Here's to an AMAZING November FULL of gratitude!!!

So, the world feels like it is shutting down. Well, maybe it is shutting down. It can feel just awful. No one would begrudge you if you were standing at the water cooler (or more realistically at your desk in front of a video monitor) complaining about how much this Thanksgiving is going to suck. How dumb the shutdown rules are. Or how dumb the people are who are refusing to shut down. How 2020 has been the worst year ever. Blah, blah, blah.

AND.

The great news is that, yes, even now, when it seems like things cannot get worse, we still have the opportunity - an AMAZING opportunity, in fact....to step back and see how we are choosing to view this scenario. This is super valuable because chances are that the way you are telling the story about Thanksgiving is probably similar to how you tell all of your stories.

This is a great opportunity to see if your brain goes right to BCD (blame, complain, defend). It's a situation that we get to use to understand more deeply that ALL events (even COVID and its keeping us from celebrating the way we normally do) are neutral. Yes. Covid is neutral. Thanksgiving events are neutral Rules are neutral. Whether you or others follow them are neutral. That means that they have no meaning. They are not positive or negative. We are the ones who tell the story around the eXternal circumstance. We are the ones who have the power to shift our mindsets and tell the story about Thanksgiving this year, and everything in our lives, in a different way.

IF. If we want to. And that is a big piece of this. I am not saying that we "should" be happy about what is happening. What I am saying, is that we get to choose whatever we want to make it mean. So, what do you want to make it mean? How will you tell your story?

My Dad passed away earlier this year. This will be the first Thanksgiving without him. And, I won't get to spend the weekend with his wife-because she is not traveling. And, so, I actually choose to be a little sad about that. I want to be sad. I want to miss my Dad.  AND, I could easily also choose, (and I do) to be super grateful. More grateful than I have ever been. To be present and truly enJOY the people who will be at my table. I am going to zoom with my sisters and Annette and anyone else who will have me. I am going to look into the eyes of the people who are sitting with me and really listen to them and see them. I am going to enJOY and be truly grateful for the food, the harvest, that fuels my and everyone else's life. I am experiencing gratitude now as I write this. And I will keep experiencing it-by choice. Simple? Yes. Easy? Not always. It takes practice. 

So, I am choosing to remember my Dad, to be a little sad, but to also remember the year that we dropped the turkey on the floor. And how it took just a split second for us to all look up at each other and for my Dad to shrug in his mischievous way and say, "Well, that's that.," before he burst out laughing. I can hear his laughter now. I am happy. And, I am sad. 

The way that our minds work is amazingly complex-and also so simple. We have the power to tell the story, our stories, however we want.

We give them meaning.

We tell the story in a way that  either serves us and the others around us, or not. 

So, what story will you tell about this Thanksgiving?
I'd love to hear it.

All of it.

God Bless and CREATE an amazing Thanksgiving full of whatever you choose!