Entitlement Protected Me From Love & Kept Me Starving For It

I hate to admit it, but in the earlier years of my life I lived in discontentment, bitterness, envy, comparison, competition, and resentment.

No one ever told me that gratitude was a practice-something you have to consciously cultivate each day, especially upon waking.

I believed some people were simply born more grateful, less entitled… and others weren’t.

When my marriage broke down sixteen years ago, it was the first time I became genuinely motivated to do deeper work on myself.

At first, that motivation was ego.

I didn’t want to “fail” at a marriage in less than a year. I worried about how it looked from the outside. I was also deeply attached to my husband in a way that exposed my separation from God, my insecure attachment, and how deeply locked in survival mode I truly was.

By that point, I had already done years of deep psychological study.

I was an excellent therapist-for other people.

But I couldn’t apply any of that knowledge to myself.

It wasn’t embodied. It was information, not integration.

Looking back now, I can see clearly every trick, every self-deception, every ego game a woman can play in her life and in love because I played them all.

I hired my first coach when my marriage was under intense strain.

She told me to practice gratitude.

So I wrote long lists. I checked the boxes daily.

At first, I felt nothing.

But over time, something shifted.

Choosing even before feeling to appreciate life helped me feel more. It brought my negative patterns into the light. It created space for a spiritual connection to God instead of my survival programming.

As I chose to look for ways I could be less entitled and more grateful and kind, my parasympathetic nervous system slowly softened.

I stopped working from urgency.

My patience widened.

I became less self-focused and less reactive in my marriage and relationships.

Gratitude became a gift I offered myself each day-especially when life felt like a hot mess.

I never skipped a day of beginning my morning with quiet devotion to gratitude.

And slowly, I began to come home to myself.

I thawed.

I found compassion for the little girl inside who had been trying to hold everything together alone.

Choosing to be grateful for this life, this moment, every experience God gives us to wake up, is profoundly worthy of our devotion.

And as we accept, surrender, and stop resisting, we begin to see the truth:

This wild, messy, beautiful life is a gift.
One that is deeply worthy of our gratitude.

If you’re feeling called to deepen your connection to ease, gratitude, and grounding, I invite you to explore my newest digital offering:

Reconnect With Your Feminine Essence – Meditation Series
This includes:

• Three exclusive meditations (available only to my membership)

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Wishing you and your loved ones a truly magical holiday season and an abundance of blessings in the year ahead.

With love,
Jen