The highlight of my day yesterday? Hands down, seeing your gratitude filled responses trickle into my inbox. Thank you so, so much to everyone who submitted--your raw honesty and beautiful sentiments helped to make my day especially wonderful. While it was certainly hard to choose just one winner (I'm thinking I may need to do this kind of contest again soon!), Jenny and I both agreed that the following response was the perfect mix of light hearted and genuine; moving, hopeful and goose-bump inducing. Congrats (and THANK YOU) to Elyse for the wonderful reminder of what being a Grateful Lifer is all about: "Harry Potter. Yes, I said it. This year I am most grateful for the last and final Harry Potter movie. Now bare with me. Although my love for the magical world of HP is seemingly boundless and I did order the complete set of books from my 1st grade class's scholastic book order, my gratitude for the last Harry Potter movie is based on more than potions and spells. The true magic of seeing the last movie in the series happened after the movie was over, when I looked at my mother in the parking lot and saw tears in her eyes. Although the movie did have some heart-warming moments that made me misty, I felt like her tears were based on something else, something deeper. When I asked her what was wrong she smiled at me through her tears and told me that nothing was wrong, that finally everything was right. She told me that seeing this last movie with my brother and I was a secret milestone in her life, one that she didn't know she would ever reach. Ten years ago when we went to see the first Harry Potter movie together she had been newly diagnosed with breast cancer. She did not think that she would ever get to see the last movie with us. Ten years, 7 movies, chemo therapy, radiation, a mastectomy, hair loss, another diagnosis, healing, growing, and loving later we stood in the parking lot hugging and crying, thankful that we were there together. So thank you Harry Potter for making 2011 an unforgettable year filled with love, milestones, and more than a little magic." Elyse, I am so happy to hear of your mother's positive turn in health. What a super rad milestone you were able to reach together! As a huge HP fan myself, I can't think of a cooler way to celebrate kicking cancer's ass than with my buddies Harry, Ron, Hermoine, all the Weasleys and Hogwarts Professors, Luna, Neville (God bless his growth into quite the little hunky dream) and Hagrid. Thank you for sharing with us, sweet girl. I'm picturing love and light continuing to pour into your mom for sustained health--may you both be blessed with many joy filled years to come. In Gratitude, Trish
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The holidays are upon us and The Grateful Life has teamed up with Heritage Row to offer a special little treat to one lucky reader! We want to know what you are most grateful for in 2011...and as a thank you for sharing, we'll select a "winner" to send both the super soft gray circle scarf and the pretty necklace you see below. Can't wait to see your replies! Good luck :)
In Gratitude, Trish ps- please note if you would prefer for your entry to not be used on The Grateful Life (no last names will be used either way) in a follow up post highlighting some of the best submissions. ""It's like washing the dishes. If you focus on getting the dishes done so that your kitchen will be clean, you miss everything that happens between dirty and clean. The warmth of the water, the pop of the bubbles, the movements of your hand. You miss the life that happens in the middle zone - between now and what you think your life should be like. And when you miss those moments because you'd rather be doing something else, you are missing your own life. Those moments are gone. You will never get them back." - Geneen Roth, Women Food and God. Don't forget about the middle zone. Don't miss your own life. Wishing you all whole and present moments this weekend. In warm water and bubbles Gratitude, Trish 1. Substituting green tea with a dash of honey for my normal Starbucks latte-frou-frou -holiday-sometimes-with-whipped-cream-zillion-calories-in-a-tall-drink in the mornings. It kick starts my metabolism, helps my digestion, wards off cancer and gives a little boost to the ol' ticker. A much better option all around. 2. Kind customer support agents. Can't you just feel the calming energy coming through the phone? Bless them and their patience. So grateful for their efforts to truly be of assistance without a side of snarky. 3. Turning the corner on my walk back to work last night (tis been a wee bit busy around these parts!) and seeing this amazing scene (yep, that's the moon in the upper right corner): 4. The excitement level around my company party tomorrow evening. I love that folks can't wait to celebrate another amazing year with the Weebly crew! All of the supplies are purchased and some have even been tested... Drinks, dancing, friends, photo-booths, more drinks, more dancing?! oh you KNOW it's gonna be a good time.
and finally, the biggest gratitude note of them all. 5. The Grateful Life pulled in a record breaking 1,074 unique visitors yesterday. Holy banana pancakes. My dear readers--thank you. What else is there for me to say? I love you all for this huge, amazing, humbling gift. In Gratitude, Trish "[Therapy]...is not about sickness or health but expanding consciousness...it's not about weakness, but about strength. It's about finding satisfying lives...And I believe you're someone worth getting to know." -Dr. Leslie Carr
You ready to dive into my TEDx talk takeaways? Awesome :) Let's start with Dr. Carr... Dr. Carr's talk on "Reconsidering Psychotherapy" really hit on a lot of my own personal beliefs about therapy and it's plethora of benefits. For one thing, she takes the time to note that you have every right to be discerning about the therapist you choose. This is a sentiment I've expressed to many of my friends a number of times; therapists are human beings, too. If you don't feel a connection with them, it doesn't mean you can't find a connection with someone else. And it *certainly* doesn't mean that therapy can't be helpful to you. When I first started therapy at 17 years old I truly did not connect with my therapist. Sure, she was a nice enough lady. But I remember spending more time sitting in her office wishing she'd remove the stupid stuffed bunny from her sofa and un-light the gross smelling Yankee candle than really opening up and allowing myself to be vulnerable with her. After about a year "off" from therapy (trust me, I truly get how a failed therapist relationship can taint the whole system for a person) I ended up seeing another practitioner and man did we really hit it off. Since then I've managed to work with 2 other incredibly warm, supportive, spirit loving women (depending on where I'm living) who have used their tools, knowledge base and overall big hearts to help me live in the most satisfying ways. Right now I see a life coach and therapist, T, (whom I've mentioned here before) about 2 times a month. In fact I have a date with her this afternoon :) I think that if you read this blog at all you will see that I am not an uber-depressed person...I actually live quite the beautiful life, filled with love, laughter and adventure! Hell if I weren't me, I'd be jealous of me! So why bother to visit with T? I suppose for me these are like mini-soul check ups. They are my maintenance visits. They are my perspective smacks that come from someone who isn't tangled in any other part of my world. They are my escape for one hour, 2 times a month, to have a deeply honest, raw conversation about everything and anything under the sun with someone who can guide me down the healthiest path. And sometimes, simply guide me back to *me*. Dr. Carr also made a point to shed some FDA statistical light on the effectiveness of Prozac (for those of you science minded folks, I think you'll like this) vs research done on the efficacy of therapy...are you ready for this tidbit of knowledge? The FDA rates efficacy of Prozac as .26, while a meta-analysis (not conducted by the FDA) rates the efficacy of therapy as .97. ...which essentially means therapy is kicking Prozac's ass. I've always believed it would be more than beneficial for folks to step away from the "quick fix" (side note: sometimes, Prozac is 100% necessary and I pass NO judgment on anyone who benefits from it) to really dive deep into, as Dr. Carr says, expanding their consciousness to find satisfying lives. Let's invest in our happiness, long term, ya know? Let's work on a maintenance plan for sustainable health, both mental and physical. Most therapists will gladly meet for a short get-to-know-you session free of charge. At least, this has been my experience in the past. In my humble opinion it is the first sign of someone's willingness to work with you. Please, do not be afraid to try therapy or life coaching. I have to admit--talking about my personal experience with therapy on such a public forum can be a bit nerve racking. Even knowing all that we do, therapy can still come with a bit of a stigma. But this is why Dr. Carr's talk was so great for me to hear; her message is dead on. It's not about weakness; it's about strength. Hell, I'm just gonna go ahead and say this--Everyone should be in therapy!! It's the best!! :) More TEDx Talk recaps to come... In Gratitude, Trish My great grandmother, Bigsy, repeated her stories a lot. When, after the 4th round of hearing the same tale, we would gently point out to her this instance of repetition she would say (without missing a beat) "Oh yea? Well you'll probably hear it another 3 times." and continue about her business. I feel this way about my own stories and sentiments. I know you've heard me say these things in the past and I don't mean to be a broken record...but be prepared to hear them again...and again...and probably again. It runs in the family? That being said... I love snail mail. LOVE. IT. Truly, is there anything better than arriving home to a surprise card or package waiting for you? Very few things my friends, very few things. Yesterday I walked home after a long day at work to find a package leaning up against my apartment door. Immediately my excitement kicked in. You know which kind of excitement I'm talking about--that little youthful rush of giddiness that makes you wanna rip it open, Christmas morning as a 5 year old style, right there in the hallway. I did manage to contain my excitement until making it in the house (removing my shoes and my coat first, too! Wow I'm maturing). What a treat to find a wonderful and completely unexpected (or warranted!) gift from my dear friend Erin inside. I met Erin during probably the lowest point in my life. I was struggling in a number of relationships, primarily my partnership, I was miserable at work, I was grumpy about living in Pennsylvania when my heart was pulling me towards California, etc etc. To be blunt--I was super depressed. I could ramble on for several pages about how much Erin's arrival into my life meant to me then (and continues to mean to me today) but I will summarize it by saying the following; I feel that at the time of our meeting the Universe essentially recognized my struggles and said "these times will eventually pass, though there is still more to learn...in the meantime, here is a little something to help bring light to your darkness...". A few heart to hearts by our complex's pool, home cooked meals, episodes of So You Think You Can Dance and concerts later...Erin was a bestie for life. Sometimes you need a friend who is just going to *be* there; to provide moments of laughter and adventure without having to go into the depths of your aching in an endless cycle of analyzing, re-analyzing, un-analyzing and analyzing again. This is my favorite part about my friendship with Erin; we managed to connect on a genuine level with very little effort. When we were ready to dive into the deep stuff after a few weeks of life-on-the-lighter-side, it was totally natural to do so. Do you have a friend like this? A person who stepped into your life right when you needed them and provided the level of comfort you didn't even know you were searching for? I hope so. Erin- thank you SO much for this awesome gift, for thinking of me and for taking the time to mail a package 3,000 miles across the US to my doorstep. I absolutely love this book (what a cool way to practice gratitude daily!) and I absolutely, positively, without a shadow of a doubt love YOU. A few of my favorite pages (it was super hard to choose!) below... Give thanks daily, friends.
Oh, and send snail mail. It is a language of love, attention, affection and appreciation I hope will never die. In Gratitude, Trish Everything about this piece of writing is genius. It needs no introduction.
Cut and pasted for your pleasure: "To Future Generations: Read the newspaper or a magazine or something that is on paper. Don’t let the whole ‘print journalism is dying!’ bullshit come true because sometimes dying newspaper jokes can be really funny. Also, if you stare a a computer screen too much you’ll either gain wrinkles around your eyes or you’ll start doing online dating/never leave your house because of reddit. Have a library card, and if that’s too much at least one copy of Romeo and Juliet you stole from your high school library. Also, if you get newspapers, don’t litter. Don’t be one of those assholes who cries at ASPCA commercials but throws cigarette butts on the ground that little baby corgis can choke and die on. That being said, don’t let the Internet take over your life. Meet somebody in a grocery store if you can and not because their ‘OK Match E-HARHAR profile’ says they like skiing and the Aristocats as much as you do. Turn off the computer and step out into the sweet sun every once in a while, unless the robots or zombies have taken over and then you might not be able to do that. DO NOT LET THE ROBOTS WIN. Or Grub Hub. Or Etsy. Or Youtube videos of cats. Don’t download everything, go to a movie theater. Feel the rain on your skin, or the fresh cool breeze of human interaction. Delicious things kill you. Fun kills you, booze kills you, spinach kills you, cell phone kills you. Use these things in moderation but please promise to still have fun because life will always kill you. Eventually, your heart will be like fuck this I’m out and you’ll go to the big dog house in the sky because all dogs go to heaven. Well, don’t play Russian Roulette, especially if Russian Roulette has to do with not wearing a condom. Wear a condom. Hopefully the show Teen Mom will have run it’s 35 season course and 16-year-olds are like ‘oh condoms are free and babies are about as stupid as the man I’m about to romp around with maybe I should slap one of these bad boys on.’ You guys have SEEN the joy of giving birth in health class right? That is some ’70s torture porn if I’ve ever seen it. Hopefully they’re not just showing Knocked Up in health class now. Speaking of education, GO TO COLLEGE. LEARN EVERYTHING. Don’t try to be an adult at 14. At 22, the American version of Skins is all kids in belly shirts dry humping each other and eating ecstasy syringes and showing off their tattoos. When I was 14, I was wearing braces, Old Navy tshirts, and wondering if sex was what happened when you thought of O*Town too often. Listen, I eventually lost my virginity and got my nose pierced and drank gin and did all sorts of cool things that will now be the death of me. I’m glad that at 14 I was sippin’ milkshakes and deciding if I could cover up my I’m-Puerto Rican-I-have leg fuzz for one more year. I’m glad I was a kid. Enjoy being a kid, and if you can’t do long division in your head, don’t start drinking whiskey. Because once you start drinking whiskey, you’ll forget all remedial math that you should know how to do in that dying brain of yours. Have first kisses that don’t end in ‘jobs’, but get a job, you lazy teen. Labor laws are for 8 year olds, and you should work for your money as early as possible so you won’t be a selfish shit. You can be an adult about that. Realize that you will die, but don’t take it too personally. Just enjoy breathing while your chest still moves. Fight for something. Fight for somebody. Don’t just sit around being like ‘oh man this day sucks because my cell phone doesn’t work perfectly and my high-speed 4d wifi smell-o-vision is going too slowly!!’ Don’t get pissed because you don’t have the coolest expensive sneakers that shoot fire at the real Pokemon I am counting on scientists to invent for all of us. Don’t want too much more than you have, and make your ambitions about things other than money. Remember that not everybody is as lucky as you are. Vote. Know what’s going on in a place other than your own sphere. Seriously, kids. VOTE. Jeez, how much can be said about loving somebody? Do that, do it do it do it. I don’t care if the divorce rate is 96% and the only proof of romance is 36 Gary Marshall movies staring Julia Roberts, I want you to think love is something worth having. I hope we never become too spineless to do something selfless for somebody else, and we’ll always be willing to do something risky for our own heart happiness. I hope Carson Daly doesn’t still have a job, and I hope that you still can get robot butterflies in your stomach when some idiot half-grins at you. I hope that romance doesn’t involve only text messaging and vampire tween novels. And if you’re a kid now, I hope that you know that you are smart. And that you should have faith in yourself and people and you don’t become more cynical as years go on. And don’t become too full of yourselves, and you learn from our mistakes and read the things we wrote and say ‘hmph, I can’t believe they thought nachos were delicious when they hadn’t invented ____ yet.’ And you live in a world where more girls are happier with their bodies. And every gay kid can dream of his/her wedding. And Independence Day happened and Bill Pullman really was president, or there was a woman prez who wasn’t Michelle Bachman. And you cured diseases. And you made some peace. And you are more educated, and more hopeful, and watching better television sitcoms. The thing is, these are not the ‘good old days’ because tomorrow is always better. Unless the robots take over, of course. - The Frenemy." Damn I wish I wrote that. In Gratitude, Trish Turn up the volume and watch til the end. This is the cutest reason to lose sleep (and man oh man I have not slept. homegirl is a chainsaw at night!).... In Gratitude,
Trish My super rad friend, Trish, (can't beat that name, can ya? :) invited me to join a Facebook page last week called Wake Up and Get Real SF - A Tribute to Justine Bateman . Her idea for the group was sparked by the following 5 minute video (that I love!): On her page Trish urges her gal pals to post photos of themselves in their most natural state; no makeup, no fussed with hair. Just us in our most authentic ways. Whoa. No makeup? No guss or fuss? Plastered on the internet just one google search away?! Kind of a scary challenge, huh? But I knew it was important for me to participate, both for myself and for the other women on the page...not to mention all the women around the world who just wanna make peace with how they look. So, here goes. This is what I posted: "Welp, here it is, as promised. My Saturday morning, pre-shower, bed headed self wearing nothing on my face besides lotion and chapstick (because natural skin does not have to mean dry skin!) This is a very eye opening experience for me, at 27 years old, and I am honored to be on this page with such beautiful women. Thank you, Trish, for reminding me to take a look at my most authentic self on a daily basis and send her love. To *tell* her she is lovely. And to pass along the good vibes to all of my fabulous sisters around the globe. I'm excited to see how this face continues to change as I adventure my way through life :) In Gratitude, Trish" I'm going to say something now that is scaring me big time to put out on the great world wide interwebs: I love what I see looking back at me. And, I love what the simple process of taking this photo made me realize. Here I am doing my best "Olsen twins" smile for one big reason--I'm slightly embarrassed by my toothy grin! I've always been self conscious that perhaps my teeth look a bit too big and that the funny way my lip curls up (my family calls it the 'bull ring') makes me look a tad goofy. But hello, my smile is my smile! Smiling is a sign of happiness and joy and openness...why the heck would I ever, ever try to stifle that? How could that ever, in any way, be less than beautiful? As Buddy the Elf says, I like smiling! Smiling's my favorite! A moment after taking the above photo, I pushed myself to take another. This is me, mid laugh. Toothy bull ring-ness and all. So THEN I had a radical thought; what if I posted a VIDEO of myself getting real? I mean how freaking real would that be? And since I've never done a video blog before, this could be a truly genuine place to start. Internal debate: ego: WHAT?! Without makeup!? YOU HAVE NO MAKEUP ON! self: OK crazy, let's take it down a notch. ego: Girl you are the cray cray one. This is a ter.ib.ble. idea. Yous fo SHO gonna regret it. (my ego is a bit sassy sounding). self: Let's just think on it for a bit! The right answer will come to us. ego: Whatevs. About 2 hours later, urged by my tiny spirit voice inside, I sat back down at my computer and recorded a mini video for you all. I didn't rehearse or make any edits. I simply opened iMovie and hit "capture" (kind of a fitting term, don't you think?) Even though I SO BADLY wanted to rerecord it after I hit "done", I stuck to my guns and my super real self and kept my very first pass to share with you here. Well look at that. It's officially out there. And I survived :) I highly recommend this process to all of my Grateful Lifers. When you take a moment to just get real with your face (and your body), you take a moment to acknowledge your authentic self. And that self is, I promise, pretty rad. Thank you, Trish, for this awesome idea. You continue to be a light in my life and I am so very grateful for you. Always, Trish So how does it feel to be sitting in bed after an utterly and completely inspiring night at TEDxFiDiWomen? So. Freaking. Amazing.
Every single speaker tonight (all women!), quite simply, knocked my socks off---my hand is literally cramped from taking such rigorous and furious notes. I don't know how I managed to remain so present and aware while writing so much, but man am I thankful for it. I've decided to take a day to digest many of the sentiments and to review my notes so that I can best convey their messages to you all, here. My hope is that you will get even a small piece of the inspiration I'm feeling. I walked away with a super rad energy (seriously, women rock) and it needs to be shared!! You're gonna love it, I promise :) But for now, I want to share one mini (and probably the most meaningful for me) story of the evening.... I basically attended this event for 2 main reasons; 1. Because my big life change I've been hinting at the past few months (I swear I'll tell you soon!) will include me continuously exploring these types of events; it will be crucial to my "coaching" to always be a student myself. 2. I wanted to see Gabby Bernstein speak. I've read Gabby's books and listen to her meditations on a regular basis; to say she has influenced my current good-vibes nature is a huge understatement. I owe a lot to her positive teachings and am very grateful for all of the messages she pumps out to her audience and to the world in general. It's actually on her site herfuture.com that a piece I wrote for The Grateful Life was first featured on "Blogs We Dig"...and then 2 more pieces got selected afterwards! I'm a huge, huge fan of Gabby's. I am a Spirit Junkie (her incredibly endearing name for her fans) to the core. So, I walked into TEDxFiDi and immediately saw her across the room. I decided to try and not be a complete groupie (my love of Penny Lane is urging me to call myself a "band aid") and I said to myself OK, here's the deal, you came here to see her speak...don't force meeting her. If it's meant to happen, it will happen. Deep breath. Just be thankful to be in the presence of all these awesome women! The Universe has got your back here. Please believe me when I say I literally thought these exact words in my mind...I can be such a dork when it comes to meeting folks I admire that I genuinely considered it may be for the best if I don't embarrass myself in front of her :) Then I found an open chair in the audience, turned my phone on silent, took a deep breath and began reviewing the evening program. A few moments later as the first speaker was about to begin I looked to my right to see who had just sat down next to me.... ...and just about fell off my seat when I saw Gabby's face. "Hi, I'm Gabby!" she beamed. "Hi, I'm Trish!...yes, oh goodness, I know exactly who you are and...(enter the tears)...I am so, so honored to meet you...", I fumbled to reply. Yes folks, I teared up meeting one of my favorite role models. I couldn't even make through one whole sentence before the water works began. Are we really that surprised, though? Probably not. (hint: I'm a crier). Gabby immediately threw her arms around me and said "Oh my gosh! I love you, you're so cute!" Me (still teary and blushing): "You always picture these kinds of moments, where you get to meet someone you greatly admire and you hope that the perfect thing comes to you to say and I've gotta tell you...I've got nothing...besides thank you and these ridiculous tears!" Gabby, still with her arm around me: "That's perfect! I love it! It's so genuine, it's great to meet you." The first speaker then began her talk and so my moment with Gabby ended in us sharing a laugh over my dork status...tho I did manage to reintroduce myself during the first intermission without any tears. She was equally as kind then :) I also got to briefly speak with Ms. Bernstein again at the end of the evening (where she very graciously agreed to read some of my writing if I emailed her...I mean really, how cool is that?) and I am excited to attend a lecture/book signing with her tomorrow at the Ferry Building (a fave author in a fave SF landmark? Sign me up!). She also introduced me to a couple of other Spirit Junkies living in SF and I'm stoked to explore the possibility of new friendships with them...their energies were totally synced with mine and while I don't wanna get ahead of myself, I think it'd be awesome to be kind of like Spirit Junkie cheerleaders for one another. I've said it before and I'll say it again; women operate on a different frequency than men. When we come together...wow, watch out. Sisterhoods are where it's at. I am so, so grateful for this evening. Really. Just so humbled. More to come! Beyond, Trish I've received a number of messages lately via the contact form on this blog (scroll up, just above the photos!) from blasts from the past as well as complete strangers. I love answering your questions (i.e. where can I get your scarf?!), catching up with old friends (has it really been 10 years?) and hearing your stories of love, loss and of course...gratitude. It genuinely is one of my most favorite things ever--opening my email to see a submission form waiting to be read. If you ever have questions or comments or concerns about things you see and read on The Grateful Life, please do not hesitate to reach out. If you ever have suggestions, input, or ideas you'd like to share, your constructive feedback would be super appreciated. I 100% vow to respect your privacy and if I ever feel your sentiments need to be shared with fellow readers, I would never do so without your permission first. I certainly use this space as a personal way to journal and reflect but it simply would not be as much fun as it is if I didn't have all of you tuning in to keep up and check in with me. You've made this process extra special. I'd love to continue tailoring it's content to the needs and wants of my readers and I love the idea of dialoging with you. What you think and feel matters, too. Creativity was meant to be shared. So, again, please never hesitate to reach out. It'd be a pleasure to have virtual coffee with you :) In Gratitude, Trish |
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