Thank you for safety from the elements.

Thank you for challenges bringing us closer.

Thank you to BO for giving Tallulah a protected space at Kindred Spirits.

Thank you for time with DA on his quick Cali visit. Thank you for how funny and thought-provoking he is. Thank you for borrow-able comments like, “I don’t have advice, only opinions.” Thank you for the joy his spouse and daughter have brought his life.

Thank you for Joy, a birdie at Namaste, letting my finger love on her head.

Thank you for flowers bearing witness to nature’s majesty.

Thank you for days packed with meaning. It’s like G says about work—things somehow always come up.

Thank you for love being a do word. That’s not a new thought. What’s kind of new for me is generalizing the do-word notion to forgiveness, optimism, healing, etc.

Thank you for Laura Lynne Jackson’s loving craft. Thank you for the chance to see her in action.

Thank you for a wellness coach to work with. (Goals are to elevate energy and transform self talk…)

Thank you for a healer to learn from.

Thank you for big sisters as role models.

Thank you for G’s invite, to (my first) kundalini yoga class.

Thank you for Inner French pointing to Stromae, leading to Bigflo and Oli’s Sur La Lune…

Thank you for repetition. Thank you, thank you (jk). Repetition reinforces what I’d like to keep in mind.

Thank you for the coaching program and facilitators’ tools to accept others where they are and how they choose to be, to grow.

Thank you for what and how questions turned back on our selves. In turmoil, they offer insight. 

Thank you for life lessons from undergrad studies in psych. Thank you for awareness that inoculates against less positive influences while it promotes healthy ways.

Thank you for literature on liking.

Thank you for vulnerability to express sadness (hurt, shame…). I would like to be more vulnerable. Thank you for awareness that certain emotions (like anger) put up a front when vulnerability isn’t ready to express the more delicate stuff. Thank you for airing truths naked beneath silence and anger. And when the response to our vulnerability is unkind, the experience fortifies us all the same. It mends us if we let it. 

Thank you for an insight about stories we tell ourselves about ourselves. I’m still trying to notice my self narratives throughout the day. I’m still working to replace less positive stories with kinder ones.

Thank you for another solo NY trip going well so far.

Thank you for thoughts while peeing in public bathrooms (to appreciate their positives—the tiles, the sounds, etc.)

Thank you for birdsongs from performers tucked in jacaranda foliage at the Union Station courtyard. Thank you for a chlorine scent bubbling from the fountain. Thank you for multi-story windows pouring light on travelers bustling about. Seen through the oversized panes, they glowed. I wondered if they weren’t humans but souls in baseball caps, hoodies, jackets, and jeans. It could have been not a downtown train station at all. It could have been a depot in the afterlife, where everything “bad” is an illusion. Everything good is real—love, peace, unity, balance… (a goofball thought)

Thank you for life full of wonder.

Thank you for Seneca’s advice to Lucilius: We are weak, watery things standing in the midst of unrealities; therefore let us turn our minds to the things that are everlasting. Let us look up to the ideal outlines of all things, that flit about on high…

Thank you for the Amish lady who’s friendly chatting lifted my spirits. Thank you for groups like the Amish, the Order of Interbeing, the devotees of Turiyasangitananda, where participants cooperate in values (some, anyhow) nobler than convention.

Thank you for a switch to a different seat on the Lake Shore Limited. I couldn’t change the (upsetting) environment, so I moved to a healthier one. Do I live that way when it comes to big stuff? Will I give up a harmful seat in life to seek wellness, even if a better option isn’t foreseen or guaranteed?

Thank you for a flock of pigeons rounding the narrow airspace down 8th avenue east onto 57th street.

Thank you for more of Seneca’s wisdom. I hope it inspires you, too! <3

Bring it to pass that I shall cease trying to escape from death, and that life may cease to escape from me. Give me courage to meet hardships; make me calm in the face of the unavoidable. Relax the straitened limits of the time which is allotted me. Show me that the good in life does not depend on life’s length, but upon the use we make of it…