How to Be Thankful- Saying Thank You is Just a Start
Throughout my journey as a single mother, one of the greatest lessons I’ve learned is how to be thankful.
Thankful for big things. Thankful even for the smallest things. Throughout my memoir, I share lots of people and things that I’m thankful for.
SO Much Gratitude
I was grateful when a classmate in the 6th grade sat with me a lunch when no one else wanted to be my friend. I was grateful when the volunteer coordinator at my mom’s job when nice to me when she found out I was pregnant at 15. And I was grateful when my mother went in to work late so that she could take me to my doctor’s appointments. Also, I was grateful when my ex-boyfriend’s mother, Kaye, loved me and my unborn child even when she knew the baby might not be her grandchild.
I was grateful for my grandmother for letting me live with her and for babysitting while I was at school and work. I was grateful for my teachers who let me stay after school to catch on my work after being out for six weeks. And I was grateful for my friends who supported me and my son often serving as babysitters or just being there for me when I was sad. I was grateful for Tammy at the University of Memphis who loved me and my son so much that she babysat or got her secretary to babysit for me when my son was too young for campus daycare.
And there were so many other people and situations that I was and am still grateful for.
Lessons Learned
This video from my Lessons Learned series from the lessons at the end of every chapter of Life After Birth: A Memoir of Survival and Success as a Teenage Mother is about one aspect of my thankfulness.
I’m always looking for ways to be more thankful. This article includes several things that I do that might help you to be more thankful too.
Who are the people you are thankful for? What are the things you are thankful for?
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I’m Summer Owens, and my passion is helping youth and young adults realize success no matter what obstacles they face. As an international resilience and leadership keynote speaker, author, S.O. What! Success Coach, and creator of the S.O. What! Literacy, Life Skills, and Character Education curriculum, I empower people to say, “So what!” to even their greatest challenges. provide a framework to help people see past their challenges and focus on solutions using the S.O. What! Success System (Overcome Obstacles + Eliminate Excuses + Calculate Choices = S.O. What! Success). Through keynotes, workshops, books, online courses, and workbooks, I use life’s challenges and my own story of resilience as a rape survivor and teen mom success story to help others confidently pursue their dreams.
Looking for an inspiring college motivational speaker? A high school literacy curriculum? A middle school life skills workbook? A great example for teen mothers? A women’s empowerment or single mother’s conference speaker? I’m your girl and will help any audience say, “S.O. What!”.
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