I’ve been on both sides. I know both sides of the coin. And if given the choice, and there’s always a choice….I choose to live with gratitude.
One of the reasons my boss ( Relationship Institute ) said he hired me was in recognition of my sense of gratitude for life. I remember him telling me a year or so ago, reflecting on how my calm and grateful nature can be beneficial in a clinical setting. I felt humbled, and yet at the time, I was cognizant of that part of my being. I have taken pride in practicing gratitude, and truly have felt happiest when I’ve consistently practiced.
I spent over a decade working in a non-profit, Gilda’s Club , some might say I ate, drank, slept, breathed my work, so much so my name became in some circles synonyms with it. I was “Michelle from Gilda’s Club.” I really loved it. Although my “work” was at times difficult in knowing the realities of cancer, I loved knowing each and every day what I did, mattered.
In the world of service, it is easy to feel grateful for your life. It is easy to recognize how fortunate or lucky or blessed one is. It is easy to find others to give you positive feedback. It is easy to see the value in what you do. It is easy to wake up and understand what really matters in life….and to be filled with peace in gratitude. I believe in a life dedicated to service so much, it is a key component of my program, Strong Peaceful Women. I lived my life effortlessly in some ways for over a decade in this world, hardly acknowledging the space I was holding was truly sacred and special.
For over a decade, daily I lived with a sense of gratitude and is has shaped, forever, how I see the world.
But……
I think I got lazy and took for granted what was always so easy for me. I never really had to think about practicing gratitude. I was surrounded, swimming in sea of constant reminders of the fragility and beauty in life. I had the honor of working for people diagnosed with or affected by cancer, and in that time met some truly fascinating, compassionate, brave, feisty, spiritually grounded and beautiful people. Through their grace and courage, I found an incredible sense of peace just being in their presence and sharing in their journey…. it was easy to feel grateful for being a part of their lives, no matter the outcome.
When my peer group focused on what pair of shoes to buy, or being frustrated because they couldn’t get reservations to the coolest new restaurant, or annoyed because their custom ordered such and such wasn’t exactly the correct whatever it was supposed to be….I almost felt sorry they didn’t see the world like I did. I felt grateful I was easily able to be content with what really mattered in life, because I saw it each and every day of my life in my clinical practice…..
And then it happened….to me….I lost my sense of gratitude…..even me. And it messed with my peaceful mind a bit. I didn’t even recognize it until it was pointed out ever so abruptly in a “hey…..where’s your gratitude?” comment……
Ouch!!!!!
My days are no longer filled in charity work, and the subtle (and not so subtle) stressors of my day are no longer filtered through my ever-present grateful lens. For years, I was able to mindfully recognize disappointments from expectations with family and friends and self in a gentle breath, and then softly yet swiftly let them pass me by…..I don’t think I recognized that it was in an active process in my mind allowing me to focus on gratitude vs frustrations with the earthly world. I forgot the importance of practicing it daily because it came so naturally to me in the past, and now I need to find a way to have that same spirit and passion in my current clinical practice and personal life, recognizing it is different but still rich with purpose. Just because it doesn’t come as easy to me as it once did, doesn’t mean it’s not as important, and possibly more important if peace and gratitude is my end goal.
Gratitude has not only has been linked to a decrease in depression & anxiety, it is also correlated with an overall reporting of one’s life as being “happy.” Focusing on what you are grateful for daily minimizes the time one could spend focusing on negativity.
The beauty of this practice is the benefit it has on calming and creating a more peaceful mind. It does not change in a dramatic way what is going on around you, but it allows you to see it differently.
For example…..one of the times I felt the most grateful, the most fulfilled, I was getting my Master’s degree, doing an internship with at Gilda’s Club, working part-time, had a young son at home, and….my Dad underwent 2 stem cell transplants. Not exactly a dream scenario. Not exactly without stress, without fear, without heartache. Yet…each day I was grateful.
It didn’t mean that I felt totally calm. It didn’t mean the chaos that surrounded me in my daily life vanished. Rather, it meant that I knew I had a choice to allow the chaos to run its course and destroy my life, or it meant I could focus on gratitude for all that I had in my life…..wanna guess what I chose?
So……tonight….I’m thankful for the not so subtle reminder to recommit to practice gratitude. DAILY. And with a very humble spirit, I confess I am grateful for the awareness that we all exist in life with struggles. We all have inner battles we are facing….but do you want to stay in that space? I can assure you, with absolute certainty, it isn’t so much what happens in our life that matters, but how we choose…how we choose, to react to them.
What do you choose?
Start today. Start and end your day in quiet reflection, acknowledging all for which you have to be grateful.
One of my “Facebook friends” recently posted a question to Facebook world wondering, “Does anyone really love his/her job out?” Instantly I responded YES! Reading subsequent responses allowed me to acknowledge, while I don’t work in the charity/non-profit world anymore, I am still and in some ways more grateful for where I am today in my career. I am grateful for meaningful work that allows me to have an impact in the lives of people in my community, beyond my original scope of practice. I am grateful for a flexible schedule that affords me the time to write. I am grateful for direction from my business coach to be able to “one day soon” launch my online program. I am grateful who to work challenge me every day. I am grateful for their trust. I am grateful for patience and grace and compassion, feels awkward to write but I really know these are my strengths and if I wasn’t blessed with the gift of tremendous athletic or vocal talent….I might as well be thankful for what I was blessed with having. Right? I am grateful for tremendously talented clinical community whom I learn from every week, hopefully to be a better therapist. I am grateful for my mistakes in my life, and for having people in my life whom I trust to show me so I can right my wrongs. And I am grateful for my high school psychology teacher and undergraduate social work professor who planted a seed in me, guiding me on my path and unknowingly becoming my mentors throughout my career. Thank you.
For more information on gratitude….
Gratitude article in Psychology Today
Peace….in your journey…..