As you journey toward your vision of the life you create, embrace the art of managing attachment to outcomes. In an ever-changing world, anything can happen, and the only aspect within your control is the quality of your response and effort. This underscores the significance of gratitude, radical acceptance, and self-compassion. Across health, enterprise, authentic relationships, recreation, and transcendent purpose and meaning (HEART), one constant remains: change. We exist in a liminal space between becoming and unbecoming, entropy and negentropy—between beginnings and endings—a never-ending dance. Regardless of your pursuits and accomplishments, it is vital to acknowledge that nothing is promised. Gratitude, compassion for self and others, radical acceptance, and an understanding of life’s mercurial nature are essential practices to cultivate. Gratitude holds a profound place in creating a life worth living. By cultivating gratitude, you not only find solace amidst life’s uncertainties but also gain a deeper appreciation for its intricacies. It is the practice of acknowledging simple joys, ephemeral moments, and interconnectedness—if you look closely enough. Gratitude allows you to savor the past, embrace the present, and anticipate the future, constructing a meaningful story even in the face of adversity. It is a transformative force that enriches both your life and the lives of those around you. Gratitude also reveals what often lingers unnoticed, quietly vital in the periphery of our awareness. Millions of people around the world face unforeseen tribulations despite their hard work, ethical fidelity, dedicated practices, and ascetic commitment to one belief or another. We expect to show up to a job and not receive a pink slip. We expect our partners and friends to continue playing their roles with blind admiration. We expect that our bodies will continue to hold up in spite of the rigor of the world and many things we put ourselves through. Yet life reminds us otherwise. We shudder at hearing the stories of people who were lucky (If you can call it that) enough to discover that nature had planted some genetic time bomb that had for so long escaped detection until a routine checkup. We expect the world and all its institutions to continue to function without interruption. Many of us can testify to the reality that things can turn helter skelter in the blink of an eye. A pandemic. A war. A breakup. A divorce. An illness. An accident. A betrayal. That one mistake from years ago. A miscalculation. A misstep. You misspoke. You forgot. You remembered. You were too early. Too late. On time. Too fast. Too slow. On pace. The straw that broke the camel’s back. The last drip that pressured the levees into collapse. Why did it happen over there and not here? Why did it happen to them and not us? Why did it happen to him or her and not you, until you realize that one person’s there is another person’s here . One person’s them is another person’s us. Maybe you’re special. Maybe you are lucky. Maybe it’s just not your turn–yet. Nothing is owed to no one. Despite our surgical preparations, fate sometimes has other plans. Adopting this attitude fosters a climate for gratitude, even in the most miniscule of circumstances. It becomes easier to have gratitude when we adopt the mindset that the universe does not inherently owe us anything–in essence, managing our conditioned personal and collective expectations of what the world is supposed to be like. With this attitude, we can appreciate life’s subtleties and the smallest of experiences. By reframing expectations, we appreciate life’s gifts: the breath filling our lungs, the cool breeze on our skin, the bed we sleep in, the companionship of those who care, and the clean water we drink. The privilege of knowing that the only nightmares you’ve had existed solely in your dreams and never outside your door. The roof over your head. The perceived failure that in hindsight led to opportunity. The privileges we take for granted, like safety and access to resources and opportunities, come into sharper focus. Gratitude tunes us into the blessings we often overlook, redirecting our focus from what is missing to what is present. The journey through H.E.A.R.T priorities and T.R.A.C.E processes demands intentionality and self-reflection on gratitude. Through this system comes the reconfiguration of beliefs, emotions, relationships, behaviors, and values that terraform the worldviews shaping our lives. In this process, you begin to see that you, along with countless others and the forces of nature, are the catalysts behind the kinetic reshaping of your life. This awareness reveals countless reasons to be grateful—both within and beyond yourself.

As many experience the process of transmutation and change through self education and self discovery, an unnerving grief may sink its talons into our psyche; its grip implacable; its grasp, irreconcilable–a grief that emerges as a result of using an enlightened viewpoint to judge past behaviors and choices that were made in the dark. Subsequently, the ritual of psychological self-flagellation occurs as we begin engaging in an infectious, self-contaminating routine of self-blame, shame, guilt and regret; internalizing a myopic and punitive narrative that distorts a complete picture of the totality of our experiences. What we seek; what we need, is clemency. Who better to receive and express compassion to other than yourself. In spite of the amount of books you read or adages you subscribe to; in spite of the amount of compassion and validation you receive from others, nothing can come closer to the literal felt experience of being acquainted with your own slice of the human experience. Although many can empathize, sympathize and somewhat relate to the things you will inevitably go through, nothing will come closer to apprehending what it feels like for you to experience you–not even a perfectly crafted genetic clone of yourself. For this, we are in a way relegated to walking this idiosyncratic path of unique experiences alone. Here is where self compassion must be implemented with nonnegotiable and unyielding stubbornness. As discussed in previous chapters, we will be faced with all manner of challenges that test the very limits of our sense of self, relationships, behaviors, beliefs, emotions and more. It is not a matter of if we will have these experiences, but when. Many of us have already suffered and witnessed directly or indirectly ineffable pain that escapes conceptualization and expression even to ourselves, let alone those around us. Inscribed onto the very fabric of human experience is the history of striving, survival, loss, disappointment, yearning, scratching and clawing for space, resources, peace, belonging, agency, safety, sanity and solitude. And while we wait our turn on the conveyor belt moving us toward the unavoidable hamster wheel of pain, futility and disappointment, we must take heart and have self compassion. Self compassion that this one pain cannot be avoided. Self compassion for what it will do to you. Self compassion that you will be changed by the experience. Self compassion for your inner child and your current self and your inner elder. Self compassion that you could barely protect yourself let alone another. Self compassion that you were scared, ashamed, craven. Self compassion that you didn't know any better. Self compassion that maybe you thought you knew better–but how could you? If you knew this pain and suffering would be the outcome you would have certainly made a different choice; taken a different path. Self compassion that you were powerless in one situation or another. Self compassion because this will not be the last time you will feel the pain and suffering inherent in being born in this world, in your body, in your family, your country, in this place, this time, this zeitgeist. Epoch. Moment. Self compassion that no one gave you a blueprint, a map, a compass, the skills, the tools, the instruments you needed and even if by some fortune someone did, they were rudimentary and remedial at best. Self compassion that you did not know what questions to ask or what answers to give. Self compassion simply for the sake of it.