I took this picture yesterday morning on a street near my house.

My city and province have been battered by a rare early fall snowstorm, with gale-force winds and heavy, wet snow. We are blessed with an incredible urban forest, mostly ash and elm trees. They had not yet shed their leaves, and the combination of heavy snow and strong winds caused many to crack and break. My yard, adorned with big, beautiful trees, looks like a war zone.

Today, as you are reading this, is also the first day of Sukkot. It is the Feast of Tabernacles, when observant Jews everywhere build a small booth, called a Sukkah, outside their homes to live in for 7 days. As you can imagine, it’s a bit of a challenge this year.

Yesterday, as I was shovelling the wet, heavy snow off our deck in preparation for my husband and son building the sukkah there, I thought of all the complaining posts I’ve seen on social media for the last couple of days. It is indeed sad that we will probably lose at least two of our beautiful trees, but I am grateful that nobody has been hurt, that we now have power after having it go on and off intermittently for the past couple of days, and that it looks like we will have a sukkah, with all of our combined forces – my husband, myself, and our two almost-adult children still at home.

Somebody said to me, “Isn’t shovelling that heavy snow just brutal?” I was a little shocked. I hadn’t been thinking of it as brutal – I was thinking how I hadn’t made it to the gym for the last couple of weeks with all the holidays and travel, and I could use the exercise. Thinking of it as brutal seemed to make the snow a little heavier, so I hastily banished the thought as best I could. But it reminded me that words have power to make us strong and resilient, or to make us weak and ready to be defeated.

I’ve been trying to track down the origins of the expression “What you speak, you keep”, so if anyone knows, please tell me! It’s incredibly true, though. Whatever you say is going to be your truth, good or bad. If you say that building a business is hard, you guarantee that it will be. If you say that you are bad with money, you will never have any. If you say shovelling snow is brutal, it will sap your strength.

So what to do with unpleasant truths? Surely they need to be spoken?

This is where a tiny little word of immense power comes in – YET.

I am not a six figure earner YET.

I am not good at sales YET.

I am not as fit and healthy as I want to be YET.

Leave the door open for the goodness and blessings of the Universe to enter your life. You don’t need to be a Pollyanna to find words that give you strength rather than sowing negativity.

What are your favourite words for adding strength and joy to your life?

Wishing all who are celebrating a happy, healthy and safe festival of Sukkot, and happy Thanksgiving to my fellow Canadians!