Let’s count our blessings
By: Luna Rose
Tags: 2020, Blessings, Personal Growth, Personal Development, Spirituality

I guess if there is one thing we can all agree on then it’s this: 2020 was a shit show of a year. People died, jobs got lost, families got separated, relationships went down the drain. It was one giant disruption of everyone's hopes, plans and expectations.

We all know that. We all heard, read and experienced more than enough of this ruthless pandemic. In times like this, it’s too easy to wallow in self-pity. Yes, of course, being depressed or furious or devastated about our losses this year are all absolutely appropriate reactions. They are all valid feelings. We should hold the space to feel them in their entirety to process them.

But eventually, we need to see a ray of hope. We need this hope to move forwards with our life.

Whenever I feel mentally and physically drained I force myself to play a game. It’s called: Count Your Blessings. As the name suggests, the point of this game is to feel gratitude for what you got.

Did you know gratitude is one of the most powerful emotions to make you happy? There are so many reasons to feel and express thankfulness in our daily lives but the most important one is true gratitude creates a strong and sudden mental shift that’s sure to drag you out of your misery. Maybe not straight away. Probably it will seem ridiculous to you at first.

But I can basically promise it to you: If you count your blessings every day by writing them down, eventually you are bound to become a happier, positive and hopeful person. It’s backed up by science too. As Harvard Medical School puts it:

In positive psychology research, gratitude is strongly and consistently associated with greater happiness. Gratitude helps people feel more positive emotions, relish good experiences, improve their health, deal with adversity, and build strong relationships.

Here are my 7 things that I am grateful for this year.

I am truly grateful to have found the love of my life. I am grateful for being in a loving, wonderful, committed relationship with a person who truly loves me and shares all my values in terms of love,life and relationships. Being with him lights me up and makes me happier than anything else. I am so thankful for having him in my life. I am so grateful for having a happy, healthy daughter. I am honoured that you and the universe have chosen me to be your mother. It’s a role that I cherish even though I rarely live up to my own expectations of what a mother should be like. Your personality and mine often collide as you’re the opposite of me in almost everything but you’re my baby and I will always love you unconditionally, no matter what. I am really thankful for finding my faith. Growing up without faith makes it so difficult to have faith later on in life. But as I came to realise life is too difficult to do it all on your own. We need someone we can turn to, someone we can rely on, at least I know I do. This year I went through my spiritual awakening which resulted in my whole life getting vastly better. Connecting with the universe and finding my spirituality is what lifted me out of my chronic decade long battle with depression and anxiety. Finding a true sense of hope is absolutely priceless. I am truly thankful for mastering manifestation and having built an unshakeable faith in the Universe. I am incredibly grateful for having a loving and supportive family. This year I realised who my true family is and who isn’t. We grow up thinking that your family is who you’re related to by blood but this doesn’t have to be true at all. Half of my family is related to me and the other one isn’t. This year I noticed that I have four people in my life who I consider my true family: My daughter, my partner, my mother and my best friend. Those are the people who I deeply love and care about and I know as a fact they feel the same about me too. Coming from an utterly dysfunctional biological family I especially appreciate having a loving, functional family of my own even though it doesn’t look like a traditional family is supposed to be at all. This year taught me that family is what we make of it. I am truly grateful (and baffled) for having had the courage to start my own successful business and going after my dream this year. Sure, I’m not raking it in yet but it’s going well. I am absolutely on track to reach financial independence through my business, which was my goal and reason for starting one, to begin with. I am beyond grateful for my family, friends and I being alive and healthy despite facing the biggest pandemic since one century. Times like this show us there are very few things as equally important as good health. I am so grateful for my family and I having a safe, warm house to live in, having more than enough to eat and drink and being able to afford everything that we need. We are by no means well off but everything we need plus some more is covered. I absolutely realise my privilege in this situation.

Those are the things I am most thankful for this year. 2020 taught me that it’s the simple things that truly matter like health and spending time with your loved ones. What can you be grateful for? What did you learn in 2020? I would love to know.