21 days of gratitude - day 1

I woke this morning thinking about gratitude. All of the things I have to be thankful for. So I asked my AI to give me a list. It knows me pretty well and gave me 42 things to think about.

So, in the spirit of focussing on all of the blessings I have, I am embarking on 21 days of gratitude.

At its core, I am most grateful for three things:

• Learning how to be on my own side and the relationship I have with myself.

• Learning how to take responsibility for the life I want.

• Becoming more able to inhabit my own life - physically, emotionally and in the choices I make each day.

So today, I choose to write about how I see myself, and how my worth does not depend on being chosen, understood, admired or successful.

This cuts across both my personal life - being chosen or understood - and my work life - being understood, admired or successful.

You will remember I made the decision earlier this year to find myself a romantic partner? I have spoken about this already, but needless to say, it opened quite a can of worms.

What I am grateful for today is that I no longer feel driven to be “chosen” or even “understood”.

I used to wonder why I was never being chosen and took it as a reflection of my worth. “If only people understood my capacity for love, I would be chosen”.

Today I am grateful for the understanding I hold in my body and mind that there is nothing wrong with me. I can remain open to romantic love, knowing that it requires two people who are ready and want to choose each other.

In my first book, I wrote this as an opening quote:

“Want it. Ask for it. Imagine it. Feel it. And when you are done doing that, let it go and get back to the Work. Of being you. Working on you. Making you better. And know that it will come to you when you are ready, because only then will it be everything you have always wanted.”

What I come back to today is getting on with the work of being me, without making being chosen the measure of my worth.

I am very grateful for this knowledge and self-awareness.

And then there is work.

I am actually very confident in my skills and abilities at work, and know that I see patterns and behaviours far ahead of others. When combined with my ability to shape and form offerings and interpret clients’ needs and desires, I can be quite formidable at times.

But like all things at work, new people come in and old people leave. It can take time for people to recognise what I bring. Which means I go through periods where I feel undervalued, underappreciated and misunderstood.

For this I am grateful also, because it gives me the opportunity to check back in with myself. To honestly assess my skills and abilities, recognise where I am contributing and see where I can fine-tune them even more.

I still have a responsibility to demonstrate the value I bring. But during the periods when that value is not understood or recognised, I can remind myself that external validation does not define my identity or worth.

I am very grateful for this knowledge and self-awareness.