giving thanks, part 3
our precious ability.
How often do you pause to give thanks for your ability to… give thanks?
It may not be the first thing we remember when we pause in appreciation. It may not top the daily gratitude list or even get a nod at the Thanksgiving table. Still, how important is this feature of ours? How essential and quintissentially human.
Our gratitude emotion is a powerful one. It connects us, as the word implies, with grace— that unmerited, freely given blessing of life.
We’re all capable of cultivating gratitude but we sometimes forget.
We wait instead, hoping for some especially wonderful experience to sweep us up in our enthusiastic appreciation. As we wait, we tend to obsess on other things… like concerns for security, injustice, inequities, loss, change in every form.
This is quintessentially human too. And mammalian. Even partly reptilian. We’re all on the lookout to make sure things are safe. We all share the hardwiring to sense dangers before we discover comfort.
And we surely have much to contribute to a world stabilized in peace and honesty. The way that we do so, however, will benefit by our consistent practice of gratitude. Why? Because our gratitude is consistently associated with improved health, stronger relationships, and greater happiness.
Whatever contribution we have to make will be enhanced by our practice of saying thank you.
That’s a gift we can all appreciate together.
Waiting on the perfect external factors to bring us into a state of appreciation could improve our patience, I guess. I suspect it doesn’t.
I suspect it generally takes us to that old familiar bummer place. The one that houses all those parts of us that get us stressed and unwell. Unwell meaning impoverished. Impoverished meaning deficient of blessings. Not that we ever could be, but perhaps, in this old familiar bummer place, it feels like that.
And we blame the bummer place.
It isn’t the place, I promise you. Whatever stress or dismay we feel while entrenched there, it arises from the wellspring of our attitude.
We have a choice in the attitude we’d like to bring to every moment. We can choose one that furnishes the bummer place. Or we can choose to be grateful.
What a fantastic capacity. We share the power to choose an attitude that improves our wellbeing. We can choose a temperment that makes way for grace.
We can give value and thanks to any moment. To every moment, even.
May this truth serve as inspiration and catalyst when gratitude feels untenable. May we remember our grateful attitude and bring it to life. Again and again. We practice with it until we get it right. We forgive ourselves and others when we get it wrong. We say thank you for forgiveness.
We are life, playing with life.
It doesn’t always please us, true. Still, the game is ours to cherish.
What if we say thank you for the chance to cherish?
That choice, in and of itself, is our power. No one can take it from us; everyone shares it.
Let’s be grateful for this gift.
Friend! We all walk this common ground. I wrote a bunch of love poems to nurture us as we wander. I’d love your support. Please grab a copy or two and share with friends and strangers on your path.
Having gone through about 5 years of close to losing my husband,
hours of research, many exhausting therapies when I had problems of my own, depleted me. Oh, I am grateful. Give thanks daily, and more but it's often like a drop in a poisonous bucket 🪣, not
changing anything. But keeping failure at bay, and that, in and of itself is empowering. When the 'signs' point to 'the end', and we
continue on, that is blatant victory in the face of evil.
Certain 'mantras' help. One is, as you said 'thank you'.
Thank you for bringing us into victory. As in all battles,
we're exhausted, and nerves are fraught.
Keep us saying 'thank you' for all You did to enable us to win.
Because we've won now. Now we're frazzled, edgy but it's understandable.
Blessings to all.
I find myself in an area with poisonous air blown from Quebec wildfires, outdoor activities curtailed in the interests of health, alone at home. I am grateful for a house with glass windows I can close, and the electronic news that warns me. Working on "what can I learn from this?" Praying for those with worse air and fewer resources. Thank you is a good base attitude to work from.