Gratitude...Let It Be Your Miracle

How often do you take things or life in general for granted? Most of us do often. With life, I have learned over the past few years is far too short to not take the time to really appreciate life in general. We get sick, and we certainly have bad experiences that we've encountered in our lives. I think that if you learn from them, you grow. I have been through more than most people in a lifetime, or than I had ever anticipated I would go through in 'my lifetime' yet I still feel so blessed to be alive and with my sense of humor. 

 I feel that with each ordeal I live through, I learn from it. Everyday I ask for miracles. Sometimes I think that I have used up pretty much all of my 9 lives, but looking back now it has been about 6. I have 3 to go! Life is good for me and I am a happy camper! So what is a miracle? A miracle is traditionally defined as an extraordinary event by divine intervention, but we also use the word to describe an occurrence that was previously thought to be impossible. Much of what happens to us comes from not having faith in our own inner abilities. We need to be strong and not weak.

Gratitude can be one of these miracles in your life if you let it. 

How? By giving you the power to turn any difficulty, any challenge, or any heartache into a blessing.

The thing about miracles is that you have to be willing to see and acknowledge them. If you wanted to keep a pessimistic or cynical outlook, you could easily ignore what appears to be a miracle. I see this all the time!Any miracle can be explained away if a person has a vested interest in remaining cynical. The question to ask yourself is: do you have such an interest? Or are you willing to allow a gratitude focus to perform miracles in your life? Everyday is a miracle if you can wake up and take a breath. Be very thankful, some people are not as fortunate. One must learn how to use gratitude to invite miracles into your life.

1. Never ever say "NEVER".

How many times have you been absolutely certain that something couldn't happen, only to find out later that you were wrong? Oh it happens a lot! When someone tells me that I can't do something, like when I wanted to build my businesses for instance, they said I'd never do it..I proved them wrong. Sure it's a battle of hard work and drive, but their negative energies were the fuel and food that I needed to push myself even further. No is not a word that is located in my vocabulary. Begin to open your mind to the possibilities and believe that what you think is impossible may not be so at all. Just because you can't see any possible way for something to happen doesn't mean a way doesn't exist! Express gratitude for the possibilities you are aware of, and also those you haven't even considered yet. Open your heart and mind to gratitude for the miracles that might be coming your way.

2. Even if something does appear to be totally hopeless by all the laws of physics and tangible reality as we know it, allow gratitude to turn it into a miracle through the grace of acceptance.

Embrace what you cannot change. Let it become something that blesses you rather than hinders you. Even better, let it become something that blesses others. Use your impossibility to change lives and by extension, the world. A way exists if you are open to it. Lean on family and friends. My friends have been my lifeline for the past several years and regardless of what I have done to make a mess out of things, these wonderful people (and you all know who you are) have been there to pick me up when I am down, to catch me what I've fallen, and to hug me when I was sad. Through ups and downs, I have been blessed with some really awesome people in my life, family and friends! My grandmother always told me that "God puts certain people in our lives for a reason" and to those of you, all of you in my life, I say thank you for being a friend. Like the Golden Girls theme song with me you have all traveled down that road and back again, your hearts are true, you are pals and my confidants!

3. Apply gratitude to every hardship, challenge, obstacle and pain in your life.

Be thankful for the ways they help you grow in wisdom and inner strength. Love your illnesses, your heartaches, your struggles and your enemies. I believe in karma and what goes around does come back around! Through love and gratitude, all things are possible. Perhaps the healing will not come in the form you expect or in the exact timeline you hope for - but healing will come and when it does you will appreciate life even more so than you do now. Life is good. Appreciate the little things, for they are truly what means the most. Simply open your heart to it and embrace it, and you will have created your very own miracle. Don't let anyone or anything hold you back! Believe in yourself and you can do anything!

Life and Gratitude...

Ever wonder what your purpose is here on earth? If I could offer you a magic potion that would make you happier, healthier, more optimistic and more productive, and tell you that potion would cost nothing and will require very little effort to use, would you be interested? Sure you would. This blog is about life, and gratitude. My grandmother used to always tell me "Michele, life is a gift from God, do not take it for granted!" These are words that we hear daily, but do we really understand them and appreciate their value? My guess is "absolutely not!" Life is good, but on a daily basis we are witnesses to those around us who are good and bad. I tend to be the optimistic one and always look for the good qualities in people, even when others cannot see it. Sure people call me crazy, but I listen to my heart, and go with my gut. There was only one time in my life that I did not listen to my gut and it almost cost me my life.

Have you, my friends even had an experience that happened so quickly yet you couldn't explain it nor did you remember all of it in its entirety? God has a plan for all of us, sometimes we just can't see it. Its funny how you think about things at weird times. I have been on vacation for the past week. I needed to get away and relax. Right before my kids and I went snorkeling I had chest pains. I looked at my two kids (whom took me on this beautiful trip to Hawaii) before diving into the water and said, if anything happens to me, I love you, and you've just inherited 2 panty companies. They of course looked at me as if I were bonkers and said "Yeah,OK mom!" In reality though, I was quite serious.  Hey listen,... you just never know when your time is up. 30 minutes later I got kicked in the head by a woman who obviously thought that the Pacific Ocean wasn't big enough and got a little too close to me. The kick forced me under water and I became lodged between sharp coral reef. I don't remember anything. I remember not being able to move and struggling with sharp coral at least 10 feet under water. It felt as if my leg was pinned in between rocks. I saw tropical colored fish everywhere and all around me and I watched my snorkel gear rise to the top of the water. That's all I remember. Then I found myself  floating above the water and my two kids screaming at me. They couldn't find me and they were in panic mode. I last thing that i remembered was seeing the sunlight above the water and bubbles all around me. Sounds crazy huh? You should have been there. What was happening to me? This is a true testament that I am STILL here on this earth for a reason and I fear nothing...not even death itself. It makes you really sit back and wonder "Why am I still here?" 

 I believe that I am here because I have a lot of work to do. I don't mean growing my lingerie businesses, that will happen. I am here to make others laugh, to build people up and to give them the support that they need to push them to the next level, to teach them to trust and whom to trust, to smile and say 'everything is going to be all right!' I am not a very religious woman but I do believe that I have a mission, a course of action to take to make others feel as good about life as I do. It's all about being positive and gratitude my friends.

 I am not, nor have I ever been a woman to take 'no' for an answer. I value life as a true gift and I cherish everyday I have breathing and being near to loved ones and people that are positive in my life. After all, negative people are harmful to us and if you have these "Negative Nancy" type people in your life...get rid of them now, as they will not stop until you feel as shallow and powerless as they are. Don't you deserve better for yourself? I certainly do. My grandmother used to also say to me "Michele, God puts certain people in our lives for a reason, you may not know just what that reason is, but someday you will look back and that 'one' people might have been the one to have made all the difference in how you turned out months, or years later." Do I believe this? Yes, I do.

My grandmother was my best friend, that one person that I could tell all of my secrets to knowing that whether what I was sharing was good or bad, she found justification for, helped me to see what I was doing whether it was right or wrong, and I learned from it. She taught me to love everyone. Sure that made me a bit naive, nonetheless, it built character, something everyone needs to survive.

Life is not about how quickly you rise to the top my friends, whether it be for business or personal reasons...it is about the knowledge that you gained while you were on the rise. Do a good deed for someone everyday. Pay it forward. It works trust me. It can be someone as little as holding the door for someone, or smiling at them. I was raised to never brag about what I had or did not have. Material things are a dime a dozen. If you have to brag about what you have, as my grandmother said, really you have nothing at all. You cannot buy your way through life, nor can you buy good friends. Some however are like an acquired taste. Not all of them will be easy to befriend, but do not give up, that one person that was so difficult to break down that barrier wall could be the one person that you save. 

While I was on Hawaii this past week with my kids on a family vacation we took many tours and everyday the bus driver/tour instructors told a store about their culture and why they are so friendly. We should all be like they are. Everyday there in Honululu is a celebration of life. So they said to us;  Mahalo nui loa na ho'olaule'a me la kaua, which means, thank you for celebrating with us. Life is a celebration that we take for granted. We get caught up in our daily routines and before we know it, life passes us by. Don't allow your life to pass you by.

 They rarely say Aloha as a goodbye, although it does mean, hello and goodbye. Instead they will say; A hui hou kakou, which means until we meet again my friend. You see, they do not believe in goodbyes. As you go back to work today, or to the park with your dog or your play with your children, to take a lunch break, dinner or happy hour, or to your doctors office,...to the gas station or to a car dealership to shop for a new vehicle...whatever takes you out and near new people, smile at them, because your smile may be the only thing that has brightened their day. Pay it forward my friend. Life is good. Give thanks. A hui hou kakou!

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