Last night, I returned home from spending five days at a narrative therapy conference in the beautiful city of Vancouver.

Called Therapeutic Conversations, the conference was empowering. The souvenirs from my travels were a full heart, a journal filled with notes, and a camera of precious memories!

The word that summarizes my experience is: gratitude. Some conference goers (myself included) took part in an exercise on the first day about connecting with and appreciating our bodies. During this time, the facilitator asked us to focus our thoughts on our knees, and to thank them.

Like many Canadians, turkey dinner is a special tradition in my family.  During dinner, we go around the table and say what we are thankful for.  This Thanksgiving as I looked around the table, I thought how special these gatherings are. People put their time and effort into being present and into providing an over-abundance of nourishment for our bodies, minds, and souls. Each year the makeup of attendees changes, yet the dinners are all special.

I found out yesterday that I won Best Body Image Blogger for the 2012 Nourishing Body Image Awards.  I'm honoured and humbled as this award came from you my readers.  You all took the time to nominate me and continue to support the work that I'm doing.  This award is not just for me - it's for you!  I may write Arianna's Random Thoughts but the site would be NOTHING without my readers and supporters.  We are all in this together. 

Changing your thoughts can really impact your life.  I have been changing mine and recommend that you should try it! Get involved by clicking here and sharing why you are a star! I'm only on day 4 and LOVING it so far :)  Imagine what you will get to see and experience.

Happy Thanksgiving to all those Canadians celebrating this weekend! I'm so excited to spend time with my wonderful family and friends.  I'm extremely blessed to have them in my life.  My family has this tradition during dinner that we all go around and say what we are thankful for.  I thought I would share the question with you.

When it comes to persevering in life, it helps to have positive mentors who are there for us along the way.  Many people I have interviewed recently have mentioned this. I saw this video earlier today and thought it is such a beautiful tribute to the importance of mothers in terms of an individual's success!!!! Thanks P&G for creating this great advertisement!

I was sitting by the ocean this past weekend, and was rather pensive.  I find that when something hard happens in life, the event can often become one's main focus.  Sometimes you can magnify the event, so much so that it can seem to occupy most of your thoughts.  However, sitting by the water made me realize that there are so many things in this life to be happy about!  All you need to do is to shift your focus and remember all the reasons why you should be happy!

Thank you is such a small yet powerful statement.   It should be said more often.

I will never forget the time I went out to lunch with a couple of friends, and one of my friends treated us all.  After the meal, she remarked to me that some people weren't thankful for her treat because they didn't say "thanks" to her.   This situation sticks in my head to remind me to always say "thank you" whenever someone does something nice for me or helps me out in some way.