Sunday, October 7, 2012

Sundays with Sarah (18)

To find out more about Sarah and this feature go here.




Welcome once again to Sundays with Sarah.

As many people do not know, I unexpectedly won an award for my contribution to the successful and winning achievement to the hit TV series MODERN FAMILY (airs on ABC – Wednesday 9|8c). What was this award? Well I won an Emmy as part of the team that help produce the show. The Show won a ‘category’ award for “BEST COMEDY SERIES.”

Still I am very excited about this and I would like to be thankful to all those people that somehow unexpectedly put me up for this with everyone else, considering I wasn’t named in person, but still it was a great honor. So I share my thanks for all the support from God, my parents, all my friends and those in my family, as well as my former teachers, colleagues and yeah long list. I thank you for never allowing me to give up. So how does this tie in with my Sunday post? Well it’s all about “Giving Thanks”. I was given thanks for my hard work I do.
 


So I have to ask you all...what are you thankful for?


Photo taken by Amy Stewart
This week is Thanksgiving in Canada. Like the American holiday, Canadians take much pride in celebrating what we are thankful for. From spending time with friends and family, colleagues and coworkers and even special loved ones, we all take pride and joy in what we are thankful for everyday. But there are those out there, for those, are thankful to exclude others.

For some we take things for granted for what we have and forget about the less fortunate. Remember that being thankful is for everyone, young and old, rich or poor. But sometimes there are times in our lives we feel it is hard to be thankful for things. When life brings you down or when you’re caught in a hard times, it is hard to stop and see what we can be thankful for. For most, during the holiday season (Thanksgiving, Christmas and New Years), being thankful is a hard thing to have when your alone or going through rough times. For those who are single during the holiday season have a higher degree of depression than many others and find it even more harder to be thankful for anything.

Photo taken by Amy Stewart
Like some of those who have few friends and family and have normally been excluded from enjoying the holidays, I’m spending the holiday alone. So in a way I do have “plans” for my Thanksgiving. Tomorrow I will get up early go to church and maybe go for a walk in the ravine – I feel so closer to the universe and God when I’m immersed in the quiet of nature, especially when I’m not around places or people where I am not welcomed – then I’ll come home to prepare my “Thanksgiving dinner.” A can of soup or something. I plan to read a book (on my new iPad) and do some writing, then I plan to thank God for what I have and reflect on how crappy my life is at times, and to write in my journal about things. I know this may sound depressing for some of you but in reality it’s a life I’ve had to live. I haven’t been as thankful or fortunate as some people but I do find what I can be thankful for. Of course, I could have found somewhere to be tomorrow as well, but everyone is always too busy. I wish I had my daughter Hailey with me for Thanksgiving, but knowing my daughter whom wanted nothing to do with me, all she can be thankful for is to NOT be with me. But the thing is, I know where I want to be for Thanksgiving. I know with whom I want to be for my holiday. And, this year again at least, it’s not going to happen. Just like it has been for the past 13 years. This may sound strange (especially to you extroverts), but if I spent it with, albeit wonderful people who are not my people, it would be even easier for me to miss my people and feel disconnected and fall into that dark lonely place. For this holiday at least, I can navigate alone much easier than I can navigate being alone in a crowd. And emotionally it will be easier. So I’m spending the holiday with myself. Not in a lonely way, but in an conscious way. Even though I hate being alone.

If you’re like me and you are also spending a holiday alone this year, I’d like to invite you to use this time not for slipping down into darkness … but to dedicate to yourself.

Photo taken by Amy Stewart
Spend your day purposefully, have a wonderful holiday with you. Do what you love. Spend time in places where you feel connected with the universe. Eat what you enjoy. Share this day with whatever higher power you believe in. Be lazy. Be busy. Be in the now. Whatever you need, so you can be a real expression of you in this moment. I do not  that this is easy. It is not.

Too much alone time can make us humans susceptible to depression, anxiety, loneliness, sickness, all manners of darkness and despair. Especially on days full of societal expectations and reminders on Netflix movies and Target displays of how it seems that everyone else has their people. But we are not doomed to be trapped by such darkness. I promise.

So...what am I thankful for?

I am thankful that I do have friends who have stuck through my good and extremely horrific times. The friends who regardless of the bad have always been there for me. I am thankful for god to allow me to understand a world that others just can’t comprehend, I am thankful for my daughter Hailey, although who is no longer in my life I miss her and I love her lots.

But most important...I’m thankful that Safeway is now stocked with LOTS of EGGNOG!!!!!!


I wish you so many blessings on your holiday. I wish you to have a wonderful day with yourself, to find a place where you can live in light and see the joy of your life, even if it is not (yet) everything that you want.

For a limited time I have also made one of my poetry/story books available for FREE DOWNLOAD for those with iPad and tablet readers, HERE.

Find Sarah:
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Be thankful everyone and have a wonderful week.

Take care!


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