AN ATTITUDE OF GRATITUDE

A lump is found, a rumor about layoffs is overheard, a note suggesting infidelity is discovered, a loved one is rushed to the emergency department. The world begins to shake. Everything that one moment ago was taken for granted in your life is now all you wish to have back. You percieve loss. You have a longing, a desire to simply return to that which existed just an instant before this scary event.

"Oh, how the entire world was perfect before x, y or z happened", you think! You start fearing the diagnosis, or the test result, or the board's action or whatever it is you are now dreading in your mind that is going to undo your perfect world - but wait a second! Your world wasn't perfect BEFORE this scary event happened was it?

After all, you were just complaining about the commute to work and how it was "killing you". You were just saying your husband never takes out the trash or helps with the dishes and now one minute after he is diagnosed with cancer, you don't care a bit about the dishes and would wash them yourself as he laid on the couch for the rest of your life without one single complaint .Just two days ago you yelled at your 6 year old for getting peanut butter on the new couch and now one day after being abducted you would let him smear peanut butter anywhere he wanted if he would just be returned to you. You were just one year ago complaining about how your parents were meddling and judgmental. Now that they have died you wish you could have them judge anything about you just one more time! Just last week you were complaining about your horrible boss and job. Today, one hour after the layoff rumors reached your ears, you're petrified about losing your "livelihood"!

Suddenly, we find our gratefulness when the test comes back benign, the child comes back home, we aren't on the list of layoffs, or our loved one just had a health "scare". Unfortunately our gratitude often dissappears just as swiftly as it came once the threat is removed. We live in a world where we have convinced ourselves that gratitude is outside of us. We wrongly believe it is something that happens to us, not something that flows from us. Just reading the sentence "your child has metastatic cancer" makes you want to go kiss all over them and tell them how much you love them and go put your entire world on the back burner to go play with them. Do you feel it? Can you sit right where you are and simply imagine losing that spouse your complaining about all the time? Not feeling his or her warm body next to you in bed each night? Do you feel it? Do you feel your gratitude rising?

Well nothing I just discussed really happened. All I did was stimulate your mind. Epictetus said, "He is a wise man who does not grieve for the things which he has not, but rejoices for those which he has." Again, I do not believe you should go around imagining horrible things happening to your loved ones every day. I think that is an awful and disempowering practice that is completely contrary to all that I teach. I suggest these mental constructs only to show you the truth, which is your gratitude is available to you at all times. You and the rest of the "normal" world are taking everything in our lives for granted each and every day. You are waiting for the catastrophe to occur before recognizing how blissful you can be right now just in the smile of a healthy child, or the ability to eat dinner or sleep in a bed under a roof!!

You don't have to become homeless to appreciate having your home. You don't have to have a sick child to feel the absolute bliss of your own child's vibrant health. You don't have to get fired to appreciate having your income producing job. You don't have to get a fatal diagnosis to celebrate your own vitality!! This is available to you at all times. Due to the nature of decades of conditioning however, it is likely that in the beginning you will have to intentionally set aside time for gratefulness. It is possible that you will have to invoke the thought of loss temporarily in the beginning until you learn to bring that beautiful overwhelming feeling of gratitude to your awareness whenever you want. But once you have trained yourself to find gratefulness in the absence of threatened loss you have risen to a level beyond "normal". You have transformed your mind and accordingly your entire life. Imagine what a life marked by a state of constant gratitude looks like for a moment.

Melodie Beattie puts it this way:
Gratitude unlocks the fullness of life. It turns what we have into enough, and more. It turns denial into acceptance, chaos into order, confusion into clarity.... It turns problems into gifts, failures into success, the unexpected into perfect timing, and mistakes into important events. Gratitude makes sense of our past, brings peace for today and creates a vision for tomorrow.

With a new found committment to cultivating gratitude in your life, that which was so "bothersome" dissolves automatically. You cannot feel fear and gratitude simultaneously. You cannot feel scarcity or lack and gratitude simultaneously. An attitude of gratitude energizes you. It invokes deep feelings of love and appreciation in you. It makes you kinder to those around you. Being intentionally grateful every single day will make you a happier person. Period.

Eventually my clients all learn that intentional gratitude every single day is a cornerstone of my approach to a happier and healthier life. But like all of the principles I teach, overcoming longstanding thought patterns is easier said than done. At first we must awkwardly carve out time and space to apply our principles. Over time, like all habits, gratitude will become something you do automatically. It will shift from something you do, to something you are. First you will practice gratitude and eventually you will become a grateful person. So until you have conditioned your thoughts intentionally, create a list of things you are grateful for and use the "nightmare scenarios" I discussed in this post to jog your conditioned thoughts into a state of gratitude. Don't dwell on the nightmare scenario. Just invoke, it and become grateful for what is not happening. Be grateful for what you do have. Be grateful for what you aren't facing right now. Be grateful for what is absolutely perfect right now. Every day, look at your list. Eventually, you will summon deep seeded gratitude on command. When you do you will be on your way to a much richer and fulfilling life.