So this is it – our first blog post. I’ve always wanted to start a blog and over the last few months I decided that, well, it’s time. If for nothing else, I’m hoping this can be therapeutic for me because I have started to wonder if I’m in a bit of a mid-life crisis. No, I haven’t gone out to buy a fire-red Ferrari (though, how fun would that be), but, I have realized that my life has changed quite a lot over the last few months and with it, lots of deep thinking with probably more questions than answers.
First, our youngest child decided she was going to do this whole “adulting” thing and headed off to college. With that, my wife and I quickly entered the next “phase” of life – we became empty nesters (kind of – we still have two dogs that seem to demand our attention every waking moment of the day – we love them anyway). While the quietness of the house was sometimes deafening, we knew that both of our kids were doing exactly what they should be doing – experiencing life. As we acclimated to the newness of this phase of our lives, we entered the month of November which proved to be the month that changed my life forever. On November 15th, my dad – my role model, my mentor, my rock – passed away. It was crushing and I think myself and the rest of my family has really been trying to find our way without him in our lives. As I went through the months following his passing, I realized that things were starting to spiral a bit out of control – dealing with my personal grief, worrying about other family members, stressors at work, our kids moving onto their next step in life, uncertainty about the future, and on and on. It was then that I realized that I needed to take a step back and start looking at life through a different lens – and that lens just happened to be the lens of gratitude.
Gratitude – it has always been a bit of a nebulous word for me. One that I really only associated with saying “thank you” when someone did something nice for me. I always knew that gratitude was important, but, sometimes life seems to happen so fast that it’s easy to take things for granted and to overlook the beauty in our lives. It wasn’t until I really started to be intentional in the way that I expressed gratitude that I started to gain some clarity. I have started to see the power of being intentionally grateful for the things around me. I have noticed and appreciated more things over the last few months than I think I ever have – the beauty of a sunset, the way my dogs love each other and play together, the kindness and generosity of family and friends, the words of encouragement from my wife. Recognizing and appreciating all of these types of things has been a bit of a life changer for me. I have found myself to be more at peace, more relaxed, more content, probably easier to live with (you’ll have to ask my wife about that), happier. It hit me one morning on a trip with my family – I realized that this appreciation and expression of gratitude really has been the “spark” that has ignited change in my life…good change…really good change.
In fact, it has been the “spark” that has led me to this blog, the Facebook group page and the concept of “The Gratitude Spark” – the spark that can ignite change, awesome change, simply by being intentional in your expression of gratitude (heck, science even says it’s a real thing! Go figure!). So I really have no idea where this will all go, but, I’m excited to see where it goes. And with that, I’d love to have you join me on the journey – I’d even bet that expressing gratitude in your own way may just be the spark that will ignite some pretty awesome changes in your life too. Buckle up