Gratitude is the foundational underpinning of life acceptance. Thanksgiving is my favorite holiday.  It is this time of year that I am reminded (most often sweetly, though sometimes it feels more like the proverbial 2×4!) that gratitude is the antidote for yearning.    If I can have gratitude for my life and what is in it right now, then I am in the present and the anxiety that is produced by yearning for what is yet to be accomplished quiets.  I can then see what is right in front of me that I need to do to move me forward to attain that goal I have set.

It’s one thing to set goals for yourself and another to yearn for what you don’t yet have.  I talk to a lot of folks who seem to mix the two ideas up.  Setting goals allow for us to have something to look forward to.  They also provide us an opportunity to put the best of ourselves forward and allow that part of us that wants us to grow to envision how life might look in the future.  But, if you then start yearning for what you don’t yet have, you throw yourself out of the present and the suffering starts.

Happy Thanksgiving to you and yours.  Know that I am grateful to have you, my readers, in my life.