This is where the tire hits the road, the moments when the external reality, fraught with difficulty and challenge threatens to suck you back to old belief systems and slip into doubt. This is the place where faith can ring hollow and positivity seems like something you are trying to convince yourself is true. I am happy to report even in this most slippery of slopes, gratitude, which is called the parent of all other virtues does in fact hold its ground.

Even after a long day, when it is hard to see the forest for the trees, when you can’t quite witness all your external momentum,  gratitude is most powerfully reliable about what is inside of you. Gratefully celebrating one’s tenacity, courage and persistence is easy to do. Recognizing and appreciating your own vision and clarity, especially when things seem unclear out there turns the world upside down.

Understanding the why of my life and falling back to it when nothing else can hold me up is perhaps the most grateful space of all. My love business exists to increase the experience and awareness of love in the world. Every conversation, negotiation, gift and request that make up my work life at Good Clean Love is for this. I know as well as my own name, the power of being able to both give and receive love transforms and heals and I know that our life adds up to nothing more than this in its final moments.

I will gratefully devote every last effort I have to expanding this presence and mission. Today, when it looked like losing out there, I found this well spring of winning.  The winning is in the doing. The winning is in the process and effort of making love real for as many people as will listen. The winning is in feeling grateful for imagining a life that I can love, win, lose or draw. It is all love.

So it turns out that gratitude is the lubricant for the places in life where you are stuck between a rock and hard place. These are plentiful enough for everyone to be inspired to try this. Today, I was making my list out loud so I could hear it. What gifts inside of you can you celebrate with gratitude? I am convinced that our world changes from the inside out.