Gratitude is a Healing Superpower
My dearest loves,
As of this moment, I am laid up in bed with the flu, having learned about the Transformer (Omicron) Variant of COVID, and recognizing that we are about to go into yet another year of quarantine I am feeling immense gratitude.
Don’t get me wrong, I am also experiencing frustration, hurt, and anger, but I am feeling so immensely grateful for where I am in my life at this moment.
Just six months ago I was in a dark and tumultuous place that I feared I would never come back from. I didn’t want to be alive anymore, and my wife and partner of 6 years suggested we get a divorce to keep from harming each other further.
For years before that moment I, like everyone else in the world, incurred daily news bulletins that screamed that the world was coming to an end, so you better be willing to fight, and claw your way through to survival because the world is out to get you.
And I recognize that at the moment, it feels like nothing has changed, like the world has gotten progressively worse with each passing day.
But when I took the time to commit to my healing, to shift my perspective over time, and retrain the neural pathways in my brain to one of abundance instead of scarcity, so much has changed.
I now feel immense gratitude. And I consciously bring myself to presence to experience that gratitude for every experience I have in my life.
This isn’t something that I came to naturally, I spent 28 years in a constant state of “want” and “regret” and “shame”, and it wasn’t until I took the time to profoundly heal myself and choose my own health that I could even consider gratitude as an appropriate modality.
If you have never cultivated a gratitude practice, then I am here to tell you that you do not have to be someone special to achieve this! Anyone, and everyone, from the most privileged people, to the unhoused can find something to be grateful for.
Gratitude isn’t:
Shaming others into accepting transgressions against them
An armor to comfort yourself while others are suffering
A statement that magically turns your life around
Sugar Rush Spiritual Nonsense used to further repress emotions
An excuse to rest in your comfort zone
Bragging about what you have over others
Gratitude is:
A Personal Choice. You can’t tell anyone to be grateful anymore than they can tell you to be grateful. Gratitude is a personal choice you make every day, and every moment. It is something you can keep completely private to yourself.
A Powerful Tool for Trauma Healing. Our brains are homeostasis machines, and when we spend years of our lives in a state of fight-flight-freeze our brain normalizes the stress hormones and chemicals in our brain. A daily gratitude practice is a powerful tool for setting down neural pathways that orient our mind body make-up towards healing instead of further illness.
A means of Honoring others: When we lack gratitude in our lives, we are saying that we don’t fully appreciate the things we have. There are people across the globe who don’t have electricity, or easy access to food, or loved ones. When we practice gratitude, we orient our minds towards being absolutely present with what we have as opposed to taking it all for granted. In this way we honor those who do not.
A superpower. Gratitude is a superpower that we all can be trained in. We can practice gratitude by really taking a look at our lives and allowing ourselves to feel the goodness in it. When we feel into our gratitude, our life is abundant. Instead of moving in the direction of avoiding or craving what we lack, we move in the direction of what feels good and what fills our cups. Thus giving us the energy to accomplish anything and everything we set our hearts to doing.
So, you know what gratitude is, here is a simple activity you can do to practice gratitude in your own life.
The Grateful Breath Meditation
If it is safe for you to do so, close your eyes and start with three deep breaths. In through the nose, and out through the mouth.
With each inhale, orient your attention to your heart space, visualize a warm, yellow light there, like the sun.
Starting with just one person, or object, or being, bring it to your mind’s eye, and as you think about this source of your gratitude breathe in deeply, as if you are breathing in more light into your heart space.
Consider how you feel, using simple words like safe, content, loved.
Continue holding that image your eye, and allow the light in your heart begin to fill your entire body, touching every cell, filling you up until all you feel is warmth.
Then, as you feel that gratitude fully, whisper “thank you so much for __________” and express how you are grateful.
Continue this exercise, allowing yourself to express gratitude for other things and people in your life.
Settle into this feeling, allowing your body and mind to feel the warming effects of gratitude. At this time you may be smiling, your body may be more relaxed, some tension may have released in your shoulders, back, and neck.
Finally close out your meditation by bringing your hands in prayer to your heart space. And say “thank you” to yourself for taking this time to remember to choose gratitude.
The Grateful Breath Meditation is an excellent tool to use daily in your gratitude practice. Really take stock and start by using this exercise in moments of immense joy, or in states of neutrality. Over time you can use this in moments of great overwhelm or stress.
Want to access a recording of this meditation?
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