Last night I was working through some past hurts by writing them out in a burn letter. I was having a challenge keeping my heart open for myself as I thought of the individuals with whom I was still holding grievances. In my mind I kept hearing one of my favorite sayings, “The open heart heals what grief closes.”

Gratitude can only open the heart. I knew this and yet it can be a sideways pill to swallow; to find gratitude when we are feeling our hurts. Yet this is where our strength and power lay, in our ability to change our perception and rise above something. So how could I climb that hill when my heart was laden with the heaviness of my hurts? I struggled to find the magical key to crack open the door to my heart.

After airing my grievances off and on for most of the day, pouring out my heart into the written pages of my journal, I simply wrote and felt the following phrase that freed and unlocked it all for me: Thank you for being you ______, so that I could be me. Once I recognized that these individuals were in my life to help me to find that my strength was within me all along, I was able to fly freely.

So please, find a way to air your grievances. Get the yuck out and then find a way to see it all in a different way. What about that situation or relationship allowed you to grow? What can you be grateful for?

Here’s another one that comes up when a potential beau exists stage-right, “Thank you for saving me the trouble of dating you.”

Our freedom from our own suffering is within our grasp. We always have the power to choose to see life differently. 

Namaste

Images: Google