A message for Thanksgiving Day.
With the Thanksgiving celebrations now coming up in the US, it is time to pause our day-to-day thinking and focus on what we can be grateful for during the whole of the past year. We may not have given much thought to that, while busy with just living life and attending to the needs of the day.
But isn’t the fact that you were able to attend to the needs of the day in all the months since the last Thanksgiving something to be grateful for, and celebrate? Whatever challenges appeared, you have overcome them and you are still here as present and as caring as ever for your family, friends, colleagues and acquaintances.
Even the problems you encountered and experiences that were truly painful, now that they are past, you can see how they have been opportunities to bring out more resourcefulness, more decisiveness, more kindness, more ability to conquer adverse situations, and so as a result you have become a stronger and better person. Even challenges are therefore something to be grateful for.
This means that your life is significant, that you matter to those closest to you, whatever mixed messages you may have gotten from them, or those you are in relationship with, and whatever mixed messages you may have sent to them, while in a state of agitation, anxiety or worry.
You understand the messages that were less than loving stemmed from their experiences that made them forget, for an instant, that they were beautiful and unique expressions of the Divine. Just as you are that beautiful and perfect expression of the Divine regardless of how you act when triggered by life.
Forgive yourself for your behaviors and forgetfulness of who you really are and also forgive others for theirs. Remember they were not specifically trying to hurt you, they were just trying to mitigate the pain of their life experience. You can have compassion for their trials.
This has been beautifully put in the Lord’s prayer in the words Forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those that trespass against us, to make us realize that we are Cause onto our life; that what we put out circles back to us; that what we see in others, they see in us.
So this Thanksgiving in particular, make it one where every person you encounter feels that they matter, that they are a shining star in your life, tell them how much you appreciate something, some aspect of them, and notice how happy and fulfilled you will be through becoming the being your soul already is.
