Musings on Gratitude

Nov 27, 2021 Personal

So with the internet blowing up this November with gratitude messages for Thanksgiving, I couldn’t help but chuckle and wonder…what happens the other 364 days of the year?

For me, cultivating a DAILY practice of gratitude  has transformed my life in ways I couldn’t have envisioned when I started. And let me be clear – I was not FEELING grateful when I started this practice. As many others have experienced, with the gift of desperation…I was on my knees with my own suffering. The details are not important. But the issues weren’t trite worries…they were of the more significant kind.

I didn’t feel grateful…I felt scared and over whelmed and often hopeless and exhausted. I had a “spiritual Advisor” of sorts who was walking me through these earlier days…THAT was something right under my nose to be grateful for! But I couldnt feel anything but my pain. It seems simple or cliche…but I had to live it… to trip over it and to smack my face into the wall with it to learn from it – So it appears I just may need life to serve me up the tougher learning lessons to get them through my thick head 🙂

 

Anyway, when I focused on my suffering…it CONSUMED me…I WORE IT! I couldn’t distinguish me from the pain or the pain from me…it was all one thing. “Focus on the suffering and feel more suffering” DUH!?!

So this Elder advised me – well, required me – to start a gratitude list daily. She actually stopped me mid sentence one day as we sat and asked me to start listing the things I was grateful for…My first thought was, “HAVE YOU NOT BEEN LISTENING TO ME? What do you want me to be grateful for?” She saw the perplexed look on my face and so calmly responded as though she could HEAR my internal battle. “ It could always be worse, my dear!” UGH! Now that was a truth that made its way into my bones…that kind of thing when you hear it you just know it is a universal truth.

Ok…I had work to do.

It started slowly… just words on the page at first. “I’m grateful for the roof over my head…blah blah blah…I’m grateful for my health…blah blah…Im grateful for food in the fridge…blah” It started to really sink in…all these things I took for granted every day were blessings, not guaranteed. And you know what…I lost my health…at some point in my journey I really understood the gift of health and a strong body. As I said earlier – Sometimes I need the lessons the hard way.

But every day the words became more meaningful and that led me into a whole appreciation for the seemingly small gifts that were so abundant in my life. This daily list became my guidepost. And now…It aligns me back to the truth every day…when I feet overwhelmed, it brings me back…if I fall into the Haves & Have Nots, it brings me back!

To come full circle…the key is to FEEL grateful…to learn to shift your “Vibration” inside from despair or lack or fear to appreciation and joy and abundance.

If I focus on the thing I don’t have…I feel like crap! Period! And then I will attract more CRAP! It’s how it works!

When I truly feel into the grace around me, I FEEL lighter, I FEEL abundant. I FEEL content!

One of my favorite quotes on Gratitude comes from a personal mentor, Lynne Twist. She says:

“When you let go of what you don’t really need, it frees up oceans of energy to make a difference with what you have.”

In other words, You can never get enough of the things you don’t really need! This is an endless, unquenchable whole that ONLY Gratitude can fill!

It is the hamster wheel folks! And the only way off of it is to wake up to the abundance that IS in your life. Maybe you are blessed with a loving, emotionally intelligent family. THAT is a grace not everyone has! Maybe you are blessed to be in a strong, healthy, resilient body! ENJOY THAT! Life shifts in a nano second. The examples are truly endless…

So, today I am grateful! I am grateful to do work that feels purposeful to me. Today I Am grateful to mother 2 amazing, sensitive, brave teens. Today I am grateful for many hands in the kitchen to clean the dishes. Today I am grateful for heat as the temperature drops…And I pray for those who don’t have that grace. Today I am grateful to draw another divine breath.

Today I am grateful you read this far…and I pray it sparks something inside your own boundless, abundant soul!

So many hugs to you all,
Christine

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