Gratitude
I’ll admit I had a pretty poor relationship to gratitude. It began with each November cataloging all things I was thankful for to the evolution #gratitude instagramable moments, being grateful felt like an empty practice.
Here is how I heard gratitude talked about for most my life.
“Thank god you don’t have it that bad”
“You should be grateful for what you DO have.”
“There are starving children in Africa, you should be grateful to have any food on your plate.”
“At least you have a roof over my your head- you should be grateful”
Forced list of gratitude’s done EVERY DAY to prove how grateful I am.
You may have noticed, as I did, there are a lot of shoulds and a lot of comparisons in this kind of gratitude. Practicing this kind of thinking is unempathetic, unhelpful and frankly made me unhappy. I ingested these messages and then began using them to downplay myself. Any time I had honest feelings of sadness, worry, anxiety, or fear, I would chastise myself thinking I was being ungrateful. This kind of gratitude, denied my honest feelings, kept me small and dis-compassionate towards myself and others.
I’m trying to create a new relationship with gratitude.
I recently told someone “I’m so lucky you're in my life.”
“It isn't luck.”
“What word do I use then?” was my perplexed reply.
“I started replacing luck with grateful.”
They were right. I wasn’t feeling lucky, I was feeling deep gratitude. Not the shallow gratitude I’d practiced in the past. I was feeling so loved, supported and cared for that I didn't know how to explain it. I misnamed the feeling as luck when I was feeling gratitude for this person being willing, able to help and support me when I needed it.
Here is how I think about gratitude now. Gratitude is reciprocal. The practice of honestly assessing the joys in my life sends out joy, clearing paths for that abundance to flow back towards me and then back out again like a raindrop in the water cycle.
But how do you practice reciprocal gratitude like this? I wasn’t sure how to honestly assess the joys in my life without comparison. The answer came from a spiritual group of like-minded women. We came together to nurture, collaborate and grow with each other. One of the ways we supported one another was by pulling cards, tarot, oracle or Lenormand. One evening I was gifted the advice of Gratitude.
I now use this as a framework for my gratitude practice. I ask myself these three questions - What is supporting me today? How did I show up and do the work today? What is coming my way? This helps to think of gratitude as something that I’m in exchange with. There are external structures/people that support me. But I also participate in doing the work of being supported. You can have the greatest friend in the world, willing to move heaven and earth to help you, but if you don’t call, how do they know you need them? It is only relative to my life and experiences not anyone else.
After I acknowledge that exchange I’m able to clearly see what I’m grateful for. I stopped listing things like a roof over my head and instead wrote a home with light, green space, where I feel safe. I’m grateful not just for the thing but for how it makes me feel and I’m co-creating and maintaining that feeling. I also find that focusing on the feeling instead of the thing, gives me the gift of noticing the little things. I’m grateful for the warm welcome I received walking into a local shop, the smile and enthusiasm brought me real joy and human connection.
This mindset shift allows me to come from a place of deep gratitude that is only concerned with my experiences not comparison to the external. It also gives me space to have feelings of fear, scarcity and worry without the shame of feeling ungrateful. It also illuminates what truly brings me joy.
With Love,
Erin
