Gratitude

The Thanksgiving weekend (4 days) is about over and so is the month of November. Crazy how time flies. It seems to me that people focus on being thankful around Thanksgiving or even the month of Nov. I believe being thankful/grateful/full of gratitude should be an every day occurrence.  That's my opinion.

I have been a bit reflective on the past 6 days or so since I posted about my struggling and looking back helping me to move forward posts. What has changed? Why now in better place? How long will this last? Thoughts and questions I ask myself.

I do know that one thing is my PERSPECTIVE on life and how I handle things. Looking back really helped me to be thankful for where I am at and grateful for what I have now. I am thankful for so many things that I would not be able to list them all here.

I've worked on tools to help me through some potentially difficult times and just being prepared helped and didn't even have to use many of the tools I prepared, but I was ready for anything.  I have worked on communicating with my husband on what I need and how to better handle my struggles. I have been confused over trying to listen to others (sponsor, recovery family, therapist) about things I maybe need to do for healing and what I feel it right. This is something I took to God in prayer and just told Him how confused I was and that brought me to my therapist and DBT skills...what would she say "what does your wise mind tell you?". So I sat down and worked that up using DBT skills and came up with what I felt was best for me using my wise mind (this is a Mindfulness skill) and then sat down with my husband and talked it over with him. He was in agreement over the "new" plan.

Things haven't been perfect but they never will be but I am very grateful that today (& the last 6 days) I have NOT been struggling in my addiction. I have had a mostly positive outlook (again not perfect) on life. I am working on staying in the present and not worrying about what's going to happen next or when will the bottom drop out (my mood plummet, my addictive thoughts come rushing back, etc....). This is not easy for me but so much better than a year ago, six months ago or even a week ago when things were not so good.

So for now I am trying to not over-analyze things (this is very difficult for me), work on self-care and what I need to do next and not a week from now. Working on what is 'right' for me in this journey of recovery and healing. Changing things as I go for what is needed at the time. Knowing that none of this is a "one size fits all" program and everyone is different in how they respond to different things. So for today I choose to be GRATEFUL/THANKFUL!!