Appreciating You

By Andrea Sipcic

When it comes to giving thanks, we most often hear things like “be grateful for what you have”

or appreciate the little things. ”

“ This really is so important and a great place to start when it comes to changing your mindset and aligning with appreciation. Take a moment and ask yourself, when it comes to appreciating the little things, when was the last time we truly appreciated the trees or nature in your area and what they do for us everyday or being able to walk down the street or be in our home and feel safe and at ease? Most importantly, as crucial as it is to appreciate what we have and the little things, these are

most often referred to as that which is outside of us, from our home, food, job/career to

relationships. What we really want to look at is aligning with appreciation from within.

Looking at this deeper sense of appreciation from within ourselves,

there are several different perspectives we can take. We can start with recognizing just how much our bodies do for us in every moment of every day, from our heart pumping blood to our entire body to digesting the food we eat and absorbing the nutrients it requires. When we really look at and become knowledgeable in how our bodies operate, it’s clear just how miraculously our bodies function, all on their own. The self-healing abilities they have are a miracle in itself. All of this already gives us so much to be thankful for when it comes to ourselves.

Many of us a( nd as a society) tend to focus heavily on what we have not yet accomplished or acquired and how far we have yet to go. This type of approach takes us away from how far we’ve come, taking us further away from appreciation. It has become increasingly common to hear “focus on how far you’ve come, ” which is precisely what we want to be doing. Although

that doesn’t mean stop having desires for more.

While achieving your goals within the common focal points of your life such as your career, relationships, finances and fitness, we want to dig a little deeper and evaluate our own individual journeys and put our focus upon our evolution and how far we’ve already evolved. What new feelings have you been able to foster? How have you grown on a spiritual, mental, emotional and physical level? What have you been able to let go of and heal from that was maybe keeping you stuck or in an unhealthy state? What version of yourself have you created that has allowed you to love and appreciate life and yourself from a new perspective? How have your challenges actually served you and propelled you forward and provided you with more clarity? What’s really a priority to you and where have you already put energy and effort towards that? If you ever find you are being hard on yourself, feeling hopeless, or that you are not where you want to be, stop and take a look at where you are now. Consider where you wanted to be five or ten years ago and the progress you have made since then. We don’t want to discredit the small (but actually big) advancements we are making that are contributing to creating the us we want to be because that is something we can truly be grateful for.