I complain a bit. Not always out loud, sometimes it’s just in my own head. I complain about how cold our house is, I’ll often have a whinge about how I’ve got too much on, I have a little rant about how expensive groceries are, I whinge about how tired I am and how little sleep I got last night.

Man it feels great to have a whinge – but the truth is, this little story we are telling ourselves, this little role playing we are doing where we are the victim and things are against us, doesn’t actually move us forward.

Sometime life can be, well… a bit much.  And we are entitled to have a rant, to feel down and to sometimes see ourselves as the victim. But it’s also really important to not. It’s important to take the time to see the rest of the beautiful, awesomeness that’s going on around us because there are always two sides to everything – to every story, to every situation, to every relationship. It’s our choice how we see things and what we focus on.

My bestie came to visit last week. We both have  a lot of stuff going on right now. We talked. About everything. From what we used to get up to when we were 5, to the challenges and joys of being a mum, to the different “sliding doors” moments in our lives.

I finished the week feeling so incredibly, ridiculously lucky to have someone like her in my life. To have someone I can tell literally anything to; to have someone that knows me so well and completely accepts me for who I am; to have another soul that I have such a deep connection with.

Just being around her beautiful energy helped me clear away some of the funk. The gratitude I felt for her friendship was so strong that the rest of the stuff started to not matter as much. The clunky stuff is still there, but I’m viewing things differently – I’m seeing the opportunities where before there were closed doors. I’m feeling lighter and less exhausted. But nothing has actually changed, it’s only my perception of the situation that’s shifted.

It made me realise that yep, things in your life can be messy, but it’s so important to stop and be grateful for the amazing, incredible, special people in your life. For the spectacular opportunities; for the doors that are opened and especially for the doors that have closed; for the fact that you woke up today and for the fact that you even get the opportunity to love. We are all so caught up in our own funk… focusing on the things that aren’t right, the things that we can whinge about. The situations where we can play the vicim. But the truth is, if we spent as much time telling the people we care about just how much we love them, telling our co-workers how much we value them, being grateful for the fact that this is a journey and the universe is always going to give us both the ups and the downs, then we would all be feeling a hell of a lot happier.

Have a grizzle, get in a funk – that’s totally OK, but just take as much time as you can to focus on all the awesome things in your life, because I guarantee you, they are there and once you get out of your victim mindset, and start reflecting on the good stuff, you start accessing opportunities that you didn’t even know were possible.

Getting your shit together requires a level of honesty you can’t even imagine. There’s nothing easy about realising you’re the one that’s been holding you back this whole time.

Sometimes we just need to get out of our own way, and focus on the stuff that actually matters, to make real change.

Sometime the first step is taking radical responsibility for the fact that we are byproduct of all our thoughts, actions and decisions.

Sometimes once we make the decision to own it, it is so empowering that change is inevitable.

And sometimes we just need to believe in ourselves enough to allow this change to unfold.

Image Credit: Andrea Tummons, Quote – “someone off the internet”