I used to hate rainy days. They depressed me and made me want to kick something (or someone!) and crawl into a corner and sulk. And if I had to choose, I'd still pick sunny skies over rainclouds any day. But you know what?

Today I woke up and the sky was grey. The clouds were ominous. The air was cold and foggy.

And I fully expected to feel grumpy. I thought I'd want to retreat back beneath my covers before begrudgingly forcing myself to put my feet on the floor and begin my day.

But the strange thing is, none of these things happened.

I didn't want to kick anyone.

In fact, I sprang right out of bed. I looked right out the window, breathed in the cold, misty air, and I found myself exclaiming out loud with a smile:

TODAY IS A BEAUTIFUL RAINY DAY!

A strange and unfamiliar joy welled up within me as I took it all in: the beauty of the mist. The contrast of the lightness and darkness within the clouds. The feel of the cold air on my face, waking me up to life and to the joy all around me.

And then... get this, guys: I actually found myself feeling GRATEFUL FOR THE GRATITUDE ITSELF.

(Yes, that IS when you know you've become one of those annoyingly cheerful people .)

Wow, double gratitude... gratitude squared!

Don't get me wrong; I still have my bad days - the days where I cry and doubt and question and don't even want to get out of bed. Yes, these days still happen. Of course they do.

But that's a part of what comes along with the process of opening to life and to your emotions: in opening, you open yourself to the full array, the full spectrum of experiences. When shit gets painful, it HURTS deeply and fully. When things suck, they really suck.

But when things like joy and love and gratitude float into your experience, you feel them fully, too -- more fully than you ever thought possible.

In opening to the "good," you open to the "bad," too.

In opening to the "bad," you open to the "good," too.

And in each of these moments, good or bad, you are experiencing exactly what it is to be alive. Not to shut yourself off or to be "safe" or numb, but to be fully alive.

And that's my greatest wish for you, too, dear one - to come alive. To feel it all: sadness, pain, love, joy, ecstasy.

Because life is beautiful.

And sometimes ugly.

And bitter.

And sometimes sweet.

But for what it's worth, we're here.

For some unfathomable reason, we are alive. We're living, breathing, crying, laughing, stumbling, and picking ourselves back up again. (If we're lucky, maybe we're even kissing.)

This is life, you know?

And maybe one of these days we'll wake up and fully realize, within every cell of our being, how incredibly lucky we are that we get to experience it all.

[jbox title="About the author:" border="5" radius="15"]Therese Schwenkler is the Founder, CEO, and “Marketer of Truth" at TheUnlost.com, where she provides non-sucky advice on work, love, and what to do when life sucks. Click here to read Therese’s most popular articles about finding your way from crappiness... to happiness

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