Three Things I'm Thankful for This Year
This past week, my job hosted a webinar titled "The Importance of Gratitude in the Workplace.” I learned that November is National Gratitude Month, which makes sense since Thanksgiving is celebrated in November.
The host discussed the importance of practicing gratitude and its benefits in the webinar. Here are a few:
Improve Mental Health
Improve Mood
Improve Sleep
Increase Self-Esteem
During the webinar, the host had everyone say three things they are grateful for in a break-out room session. I want to share those three things with you today and ask you to do the same.
Usually, as soon as I open my eyes, I thank God for another day - because you never know, I may never wake up one day. My prayers in the morning usually consist of a gratitude list.
And of course, I’m always so grateful for my family and God; those are the obvious, but today, I’m sharing three other things I’m grateful for:
My Health
Therapy
Where I Work
My Health
Health is an underrated blessing. If we are not healthy, there is a lot we cannot do. Also, a lot of money is spent when one is not healthy on medicine, doctor visits, specialist visits, and sometimes equipment (like a glucose meter to check blood sugar if you have diabetes).
This year, I got serious about my health journey, which I’ve written about before. However, during the 75-hard challenge I completed in October, I realized what a blessing health truly is. Everything we do is about mindset, and during the 75-hard challenge, I had to change my mindset and not focus on how “hard” the challenge was but focus on “what a blessing it is that I’m able to do this challenge” if I was going to continue.
During one of our weekend walks with my husband, I told him that focusing on our health today is an investment in our future. We have plans to travel and do so many things, but if we are not healthy when we are older because we haven’t taken care of ourselves today, those plans will not happen.
So today, I’m sharing that I am thankful for taking my health seriously this year. I’ve taken every aspect of my health seriously: my physical health by moving my body and eating better, my mental health by being consistent with therapy and focusing on my PTSD, and my spiritual health by staying rooted in God’s word.
Taking care of my health has poured into other areas of my life, such as my family, business, and podcast.
Therapy
Okay, I just mentioned therapy and my focus on my PTSD, but I truly am thankful for therapy because it has helped me enormously this year. Although I wasn’t happy with my diagnosis of PTSD and I wasn’t pleased that I had “to do the work,” - I’ve realized what a blessing it is to have access to therapy, to have found a therapist that “gets me” - and to have the resources available for therapy.
As I’ve been going through this journey with therapy, I’ve learned a lot about myself, my brain, my body, and God (He created us). I’ve learned how I want my family dynamic to be and the cycles I want to break. I’ve learned how important honest communication with my husband is. By honest communication, I mean saying things that genuinely make me feel uncomfortable but need to be said in order to move forward in whatever situation we are in.
I’ve learned how to advocate for myself, when to speak up, and how to speak up and address my wants, needs, and desires. I’ve learned that I couldn’t speak my needs for a long time and that my needs weren’t being met. And lastly, I’ve learned how to name my emotions, why I’m feeling that emotion, and where in my body I’m feeling the emotion.
Learning this has helped my relationships with family, friends, coworkers, husband, and kids.
Where I Work
I’ve often said that I don’t feel like I work at a traditional 9 to 5. I say this because when people usually talk about having a 9 to 5 or their job, they usually talk down about it. I read online all the time about people wanting to leave their jobs, horror stories about their boss, or drama with their coworkers, and I’m at a place where I can’t relate.
Every day, I thank God for my job, and I’ve always done this with any job, but I swear I work at a unicorn place. My job offers excellent benefits, good work/life balance, a great leadership team, and amazing coworkers. Yes, the job I do daily has its challenges (I’m a medical coding and benefits analyst), but who I work with, and the company I work for are good, so I don’t mind how challenging the work is.
With the benefits that my job provides, they offer mental health resources, and this is the way I was able to start therapy this year and how I found the fantastic therapist I do have. And my leadership team was very supportive last year when I was going through some health issues with my son. I truly appreciate how my leadership team checked in and ensured we were okay because I’ve worked where I was made to feel guilty for wanting to take care of my daughter and not being able to go to work.
What Are You Thankful For?
I’d love to know three things you are thankful for this year. Again, not the givens like God and family. I want to talk about things that we often overlook or take for granted. You can leave them in the comments or send me a message.
And let’s make gratitude a new habit for 2025!
With Love, Heidy