For many, many years now, a movement popularized by Oprah, Gratitude has been a buzz word. There is in fact such a buzz around it that it often falls upon deaf ears.

Many of us, including myself, have become desensitized to the concept of gratitude. This is not to say that I am not grateful. I live in complete gratitude each and every day. It has just taken me some time to learn to be grateful toward gratitude.

I would even call myself a gratitude junkie now. When I wake up each morning I thank the day and the sun and my soft cotton sheets. I thank myself for being me. It may sound a bit strange but it comes so naturally to me that I’m no longer trying to be grateful I just am.

Who am I? Who are you?

We’re back to the question after a week of contemplation. I hope you’ve had a chance to think about this. If we’ve come to the understanding that we are not our labels or classifications then we must figure out who we are without these.

We exist in human form. We breathe. We move. We think. These are 3 realities in our life that confirm “human” existence. But who are we that separates us from the next person who also breathes, moves and thinks?

There must be something that distinguishes us from other people. I would say it is our personal essence. No two people have the same essence.

I remember it quite clearly lying in agonizing pain laboring my third child. My unborn son was in a position preventing his imminent birth. I was at home with my midwife sensing that things weren’t progressing as they should, as they did with my previous births. Time had slowed to a crawl yet I wasn’t making it any closer to the finishing line.

In this time I never worried or became anxious. Somehow in this moment I knew surrender was the way. I fell into rhythm with a force outside myself and through the process of having my son’s position manipulated through 2 excruciating contractions I surrendered.

In my surrender I knowingly trusted that all as it should be and that no matter what, in some fashion, there would be a conclusion.

I couldn’t define how I would get there. I couldn’t worry my way through in self-made scenarios. I relinquished control and surrendered to a force that was with me, one that was always with me.