{"id":29,"date":"2015-03-11T13:00:05","date_gmt":"2015-03-11T13:00:05","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/awakenyourtruth\/?p=29"},"modified":"2015-03-11T14:20:51","modified_gmt":"2015-03-11T14:20:51","slug":"38-lessons-im-grateful-i-learned-by-age-38","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/awakenyourtruth\/2015\/03\/38-lessons-im-grateful-i-learned-by-age-38.html","title":{"rendered":"38 lessons I\u2019m Grateful I Learned by Age 38"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>1. Happiness is a choice. It is not a thing we buy. It&#8217;s not our circumstances or a place we arrive at. It is already within us. It\u2019s our choice to tap into it each and every day.<\/p>\n<p>2. All emotions are beautiful and purposeful. This nonsense about \u201cthink positive and only good things will come is Bullshit. My darkest days have brought me to my brightest days only because I was willing to love and embrace every bit of my darkness.<\/p>\n<p>3. Surround your self with people who shine bright because these are the people that want to see you shine even brighter.<\/p>\n<p>4. The right choice is often the scariest choice and requires leaping out of your comfort zone with no certainty of what waits for you on the other side.<\/p>\n<p>5. Stepping into your true power requires opening your heart and taking the road less traveled.<\/p>\n<p>6. In order to be yourself you may have to disappoint those around you and that\u2019s ok. Be who you are. It\u2019s worth it.<\/p>\n<p>7. Forgiveness is a gift we give to ourselves. When we truly forgive, we see that it was never personal. It is never about us.<\/p>\n<p>8. To fully learn a lesson in life it often takes being the one offering the lesson and the one receiving the lesson. Karma is real.<\/p>\n<p>9. Defining myself by what I have is a dead end. Defining myself by who I choose to be opens doors that I could have never imagined.<\/p>\n<p>10. We don\u2019t need love. We are love. We are here to share it with the world.<\/p>\n<p>11. When we take responsibility for our own thoughts, feelings and actions, we take ownership of who we are from the inside out and this is the most freeing feeling in the entire universe.<\/p>\n<p>12. The more I look within and check in with how I want to feel and what I want to believe in, the more miracles show up in my life<\/p>\n<p>13.\u00a0Getting clear on what a true yes and a true no feels like is powerful. It saves a lot of time and energy.<\/p>\n<p>14. As we change, the people that surround us will change. It\u2019s nothing to feel bad or guilty about. It\u2019s OK. It\u2019s safe. IT\u2019s normal.<\/p>\n<p>15.\u00a0We are here to share our gifts with the world. When we deny ourselves of this, our soul suffers.<\/p>\n<p>16. The words that I speak to myself and to others are powerful. They impact how I feel and how I make others feel. I choose my words wisely.<\/p>\n<p>17. Every single one of our emotions has a message for us. If we ignore our emotions, we miss what our heart is trying to tell us. We must have the courage to feel our emotions rather than attempting to numb them.<\/p>\n<p>18. Unconditionally loving others begins with unconditionally loving ourselves.<\/p>\n<p>19. The more grateful I am for every challenge and obstacle in my life the more I am able to find the lesson in what the challenge is trying to teach me. Complaining is never an option.<\/p>\n<p>20. Every single person that crosses my path is my teacher. They offer me the doorway to my own growth. It\u2019s up to me to want to open the door and invite growth in.<\/p>\n<p>21. Success is a very personal thing. You make the rules according to your own heart.<\/p>\n<p>22. Fate is the hand we are given. Destiny requires taking the hand we are given and turning it into our own unique creation of goodness. This requires some serious straight up commitment. There is no quick fix and at the same time everything you\u2019ll ever need to create your goodness lives right inside of you.<\/p>\n<p>23. It\u2019s possible to love someone and let them go. Sometimes letting them go is the most loving thing you can do.<\/p>\n<p>24. There is no right and wrong. There is only what we define as right and wrong. The more you can see life through the eyes of a neutral observer, the more you can step boldly into who you came here to be.<\/p>\n<p>25. Life can\u2019t deliver anything extraordinary to you until you believe you are extraordinary. It will only hand you what you are prepared to receive.<\/p>\n<p>26. When you let go of the fear of what you \u201cthink\u201d society expects from you, you will begin to live in alignment with your truth. When you drop the need for approval you gain the freedom to be you.<\/p>\n<p>27. Gossip is poison. When you put down others, you are portraying a part of how you really feel about yourself. Confident, fulfilled, happy people don\u2019t waste energy on putting others down. Their only focus is on lifting others up.<\/p>\n<p>28. Being good and kind doesn\u2019t make you happy. Being honest with yourself and others makes you happy.<\/p>\n<p>29. You can be a bitch and be kind at the same time.<\/p>\n<p>30. To remember your deepest truth and who you really are, you must have the courage to explore all aspects of yourself &#8211; the good the bad and the ugly.<\/p>\n<p>31.\u00a0The people that push our buttons the most are our most valuable teachers.<\/p>\n<p>32. When we stop seeking the acceptance of others and realize the only acceptance we need is from ourselves, the possibilities become endless.<\/p>\n<p>33. We are all doing the very best we can with what we know in any given moment.<\/p>\n<p>34. Nothing has meaning until we give it meaning. Give everything even the hard stuff an empowering meaning and your golden.<\/p>\n<p>35. We don\u2019t get what we want, we get what we need so that we can evolve into the fullest expression of who we are meant to be.<\/p>\n<p>36. The world is one big mirror. What we most love and dislike about others also lies right inside of us. When we can embrace this, we are guided back to our truth.<\/p>\n<p>37. We are here to make a difference in our own unique way. Use this life wisely.<\/p>\n<p>38. Life is always trying to get our attention so that we can wake up to who we really are \u2013 it\u2019s our job to give life our fullest attention in return.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>1. Happiness is a choice. It is not a thing we buy. It&#8217;s not our circumstances or a place we arrive at. It is already within us. It\u2019s our choice to tap into it each and every day. 2. All emotions are beautiful and purposeful. This nonsense about \u201cthink positive and only good things will&hellip;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":585,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-29","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v23.9 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>38 lessons I\u2019m Grateful I Learned by Age 38 - Awaken Your Truth<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"noindex, nofollow\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"38 lessons I\u2019m Grateful I Learned by Age 38 - Awaken Your Truth\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"1. Happiness is a choice. It is not a thing we buy. It&#8217;s not our circumstances or a place we arrive at. It is already within us. It\u2019s our choice to tap into it each and every day. 2. All emotions are beautiful and purposeful. This nonsense about \u201cthink positive and only good things will&hellip;\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/awakenyourtruth\/2015\/03\/38-lessons-im-grateful-i-learned-by-age-38.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Awaken Your Truth\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2015-03-11T13:00:05+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:modified_time\" content=\"2015-03-11T14:20:51+00:00\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Denise Simone\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<!-- \/ Yoast SEO plugin. -->","yoast_head_json":{"title":"38 lessons I\u2019m Grateful I Learned by Age 38 - Awaken Your Truth","robots":{"index":"noindex","follow":"nofollow"},"og_locale":"en_US","og_type":"article","og_title":"38 lessons I\u2019m Grateful I Learned by Age 38 - Awaken Your Truth","og_description":"1. Happiness is a choice. It is not a thing we buy. 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After feeling a sense of disconnection from her own truth for many years, Denise was guided to rediscover herself from the inside out. Today Denise is passionate about guiding her clients to getting to know them selves at the deepest level. She believes that when we bring awareness to all of who we are and love ourselves unconditionally we allow ourselves to access our own answers from within and gain the courage to live out our own unique journey. She is finds tremendous joy in supporting others through this process and does this through her workshops and private spiritual coaching and counseling sessions. Her passion to guide others on their own journey to awakening their truth is directly birthed out of her own journey to awaken to her own. 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