Gratitude...

Recently Caroline Myss, one of my great teachers in this lifetime wrote a “note” about an encounter she had in Seattle. She was staying at a posh hotel, and as she went through the wide doors being held open for her by the doormen, an elderly homeless woman dressed in bags, bent and worn by life, passed by her stopping her in her tracks. One of Caroline’s many projects in this life is her passion to help the homeless. Her generous gift of sharing this profound moment in her life and the questions that arose from it incited some of my own. Mine orbited about gratitude. Whenever we encounter situations like this it is hard not to look away, duck our heads and walk away from it muttering to ourselves a little prayer of thanks that we are not in the same situation. We say we are grateful for our safe, comfy life but what do we do to show it besides say it?

Gratitude is a word, a state, an idea that can often be misused in my opinion. When people speak of gratitude and what they are grateful for, they often speak of their feelings of gratefulness with an air of fear: “I am grateful it was not my child that got ill”, or “I am grateful that I have a warm house this winter” and then they bow their head not to “see” beyond this fear and their own relief that whatever challenge found someone else had not found them first. This fear is often generated by the misguided idea that if they fully see the problems in this world it will somehow invite them into their lives. So, they mask this fear in the word of gratitude.

I think gratitude is not just a word, it is an action. Being grateful is acknowledging the grace in your life and spreading it, not hiding behind it. Being grateful goes beyond giving thanks; it is spreading thanks. If we all are as truly grateful as we say and think we are, then why do we not help our neighbors more, why do we turn away from the pain we see in the world? Why do we not ask ourselves these questions? Call ourselves on the fiction that we continually tell ourselves when we turn our heads? Gratitude takes strength, self reflection and bravery. I say, be bold, see the world, ask yourself questions and live in a field of grace that perpetuates gratitude not one that hides behind it.

People don’t usually say, “I must find a way to express my thankfulness.” They say I must find a way to express my gratitude.” This is telling; it takes gratitude and manifests it into the physical; it creates an action with sentiment, not just a state of being. It challenges you to get out of your head. Living in gratitude is indeed a practice. One I try to be mindful of each day. A practice is just that, something you practice. Not something you just do and get over with, but something you make mistakes with, forget some days or ignore. But that is the beauty of it. The more you practice it, the more it becomes a way of life. These are not just questions that I pose to you but to myself as well, and these are the thoughts on gratitude that have been rattling around in my head…yours?