LOVE AND GRATITUDE

I sit here enjoying my mellow evening while reminiscing on a wonderful night spent with a friend a few moons ago. It was one of those nights that kind of sticks with you and you ponder back on. Just a good, wholesome night. We asked questions and discussed topics from various outlets of life over a bottle of wine and medium rare Alberta striploin. We became fixated on some of the people in our lives and it kind of sparked from the question “How would you describe them in three words?” We probably ran through three to four people each before we were eventually asked to describe ourselves in a few choice words. I spoke about one person in particular for that my words of affirmation about them still leaves me with this sense of love and gratitude oozing out of me days later. With each word I used, there was depth to my definition of the descriptors and the reasons as to why I chose them. The more I described this person, the more sense of gratitude I had for them, something that I don’t think I experience to often. But gosh, it made me ever so appreciative of them to be in my life and the fact that I could be so fortunate. I went to bed with a warm heart that night. What is odd is that I had never really talked about that person in that way before. I knew I believed all those things but had never had such a strong sense of feeling for them like I did in that moment. What was hard though was describing myself!

Since then, it has led me to think of a few other things that pertain to that little exercise. One of them being the fact that if you write something down, there is a higher percent chance you are more likely to remember it. We take that information and we translate or communicate it into some other form/version of language to help us retain it beyond just its first state which is initially an internal thought. I questioned that maybe we lose sight of a lot of wonderful things we have in life because we just don’t communicate them enough beyond the thoughts and beliefs we tell ourselves in our heads. There are so many wonderful forms of language! For example, simply speaking/verbal communication, writing and forms of poetry, singing with heart and soul, body language, touch, presence, sex etc. Beyond that, what these “languages” do for us can be quite profound. The relationships we build and the strength of connection that comes from our ability to express ourselves. What’s strange is that we might be losing these abilities to communicate all our internal info and drowning it out by all this other info readily available to us. Its easier for us to hit autopilot and intake but not actually retain the ridiculous amounts of worldly information at our fingertips (which is for the most-part lacking substance) instead of processing and expressing our own info in a meaningful way. What're our lives? What do they mean to us? Where are we at? Are we where we want to be? Are we able to be present? What experiences do we want? How do we want to grow? How do we want to give back?

It's great to be able to sit and process these questions which is next to impossible when we don’t give ourselves the space to do so. Space from people, our obligations, our distractions, our shit. My next question is once we ask ourselves these questions, would we be gaining more value by expressing the question and our potential answers more than just internally? By journaling? Talking to a friend? Creating art? Also, how could we solidify our confidence and conviction in them? I feel like expressing those beliefs in multiple ways would give us that heightened sense of fulfilment, gratitude and love.

There are many people out there that have acquired this talent. But my next question is what about if we try these forms of creative process and ask questions and communicate constructive answers about ourselves? Having a real, open, honest conversation with ourselves about who we are and our presence. But remembering to eventually tap into our positive self talk and self-love. Do I love and appreciate myself and the journey I am on? Can I acknowledge that I love myself by talking about myself like I spoke about that loved one? After all I deserve it don’t I? And would my answers be even more concrete if I tried writing them down? Or singing a song? Smiling/laughing at myself in the mirror? Or making a bumper sticker that says “I’m fucking awesome!”?

I don’t know, spit-balling thoughts… sure helped writing them down though!