*Gush!* Could Someone Please Pass Me a Tissue.

I sit here stranded in the middle of an ocean of appreciation and while it doesn’t happen often, I’m at a loss for words. And so,  as has become my routine, when moved by emotion, THIS is the place I have learned to come and share the parts of me that ache the most to be expressed.

What do I say to messages like this one:

“You speak to the girliness in me that I’ve buried under dirty laundry, piles of books and an endless sea of toys! I truly feel the love in your emails and I love all the smooches and parsley kisses. I like feeling girly sometimes and I’m realizing too that it is okay to feel girly (: Or maybe a better term would be it feels good to feel like a Diva!”

*Guuuush!*

I love that! And then I was trying sooooo hard to blast through the neverending sea of emails and then I got this one that landed in my lap and left me stunned and speechless.

“Of all of the blogs in all of the world, I tell you honestly that hardly one day goes by that I don’t check in to your website and blog. I miss it a lot if I don’t happen to be near my computer and when I do get back to my computer, your’s is the first website I go to~! I love it all — the messages, the colours, the energy vibrating through every word I read. Even the stuff that you might wonder about being sad, or not quite what you would like to say — it’s all great because it’s all real and that is what makes reading you every day so marvelous.

In spite of the best laid plans, our lives sometimes go more like an old movie with a pile of scratchy lines blurring out our loveliness, instead of like the Doris Day movie we might rather it be! Nobody has all of the answers, but it is sure a huge relief to know that, in sharing some of our struggles, we find the strength to look ourselves in the mirror and say “I will keep going and smiling because there are a lot of green smoothie recipes I haven’t tried yet ..and besides that, he was a jerk ..and whose idea of a perfect body are we talking about anyway…etc.”

I am thrilled that so many people are discovering green smoothies and raw food and I am so grateful to all of you for putting such glorious enthusiasm into making us feel good. Because you are succeeding in making us feel really good about so many more things than just making green smoothies.

THANK YOU WITH ALL OF MY HEART!

Catherine”

And so I sit here, glistening streams of emotion trickle down my cheeks, and I’m paralyzed with gratitude and that universal “mush” that flows within me seems now stronger than myself.

*deeeeeep breath*

I can’t necessarily identify that lucky day when destiny tapped me on the shoulders to say,

“Hey, Sunshine! I’m gonna set you up with two dynamite muffins to love and a whole community of empowered and inspired women to remind you of who you are every day. All you have to do in exchange, is love the world and be yourself.”

While I’ve always known I’m a woman of words, at this moment I have very few that encompass my gratitude for the love and lives that touch my own.

I think that anyone who commits to speaking their truth, who pledges to love the world and her people in spite of countless reasons not to, must feel as I do now–overcome with gratitude at the recognition that we are not alone.

Not even close. While I sit in a silent and sunlit living room I send my deepest gratitude and appreciation to each and everyone of you. The things we see and admire in others must, inevitably, be the things we carry within ourselves or we would never recognize and appreciate them in someone else.

The more validation we receive from others, the more I realize how privileged we are to be connected to so many incredible women (and men) like you.

Thank you for being here and thank you for your big, brave heart.

Love and gratitude,

Tera and Amy