Skip to main content

Gratitude


True gratitude is a fundamental appreciation for life that runs deeper than the "name one thing you're thankful for" discussion that occurs at the Thanksgiving table. Like optimism and pessimism, gratitude is a matter of perspective.

We rarely recognize just how good we've got it until some of that good is taken from us. Loss makes us acutely aware of what we've previously taken for granted.

I didn't appreciate the natural symmetry of my body until I surrendered a breast to cancer. 

I didn't respect the functional utility of a full head of hair until I had to rely on substandard alternatives to sop up sweat, protect my tender scalp from sun, and keep me warm at night.

I didn't understand how great a miracle it was to conceive and deliver a healthy baby until my unborn daughter was diagnosed with a fatal chromosome disorder.

It's not uncommon to wallow a bit when we suffer a hardship. It's easy to slip into a puddle of self-pity. Normal as it may be to perseverate on our pain, it is not a reaction that serves us well.

The more we ruminate on how difficult our life has become, the more we feel singled out in our misery. Everywhere we look, we see people who have been spared our particular struggle. We sink deeper and deeper into a pit of despair.

Gratitude is the key to short-circuiting this downward spiral. However, cultivating gratitude requires a seismic attitudinal shift. Instead of focusing our attention on our losses, we need to turn it to the blessings that remain in our lives.

It's not always easy to see those little joys, particularly when we're broken and grieving. Yet even in the face of adversity, we can usually conjure a possibility or two that would increase the weight of our burdens.

Imagining these worst case scenarios makes our own problems seem a little bit smaller, and recognizing the good that still exists in our lives re-frames the gradient of our pain in a way that alleviates the uncomfortable symptoms of feeling sorry for ourselves.

There's a kernel of truth in the old saying, "It could always be worse." Practicing gratitude is as simple as using that adage as the lens through which we view our experience.  
Labels:

Popular posts from this blog

The Tortures of Tamoxifen, Part 2

Though my oncologist was not thrilled with me quitting tamoxifen, she did give me her blessing. “Take a break and see how you feel. Just promise me that you’ll consider starting up again.” I stopped taking the pills and within a few weeks noticed an improvement in my energy level. My hot flashes were less frequent, weight management a bit easier. Running, my favorite leisure activity, stopped feeling like a chore. I couldn’t quite ratchet my pace back up to pre-cancer levels, but I could finally hold my own with my running buddies again. I harbored a small hope that stopping the medicine would put me back into my previous ovaries-still-in-action hormonal state of being. Sadly, aside from one scant period right after I abandoned the drug, my body stayed stubbornly stuck in menopause. My symptoms weren’t nearly as bad as they’d been on tamoxifen, but they were still there, mocking me. I started to have doubts about my decision. The drumbeat of, “What if?” reverberated in my ...
Read more

My Love-Hate Relationship with Teaching

I have a confession to make, one that seemingly meets the criteria of a mundane mid-life crisis: I love what I do, but I hate my job. I’m a kindergarten teacher by trade. I adore children—always have, always will—and have a natural affinity for the littlest learners. I enjoy watching their growth across a school year, the way they come in green and fresh as newly planted seeds at the start, and leave my classroom as saplings stretching toward the infinite sky of knowledge and understanding. I hate the metrics that are used to define my students’ performance (and my own). I loathe the over-reliance on a narrow band of assessment measures that ignores the intangibles of student growth and extinguishes the joy of learning. I resent seeing children reduced to numbers on a grid in the name of data-based decision-making. I cherish the time I spend with my students in the Zone of Proximal Development. I thrive on the everyday teachable moments that enable me to coach into my stud...
Read more

Blaming the Victim

“Everything happens for a reason.” It’s one of the most common rote responses we have when we hear of someone else’s tragedy. I’ve been on the receiving end of this comment more times than I care to count…and I hate it. Seriously, I’d love to see it eradicated from the English language. When people tell me that there’s a reason I got cancer, it implies that there’s a reason why they didn’t. When they tell me that there’s a reason I lost my baby, the unspoken message is—well, you know. Those words, strung together in an overture of sympathy, provide comfort only to the person speaking them. They represent a very convenient and human reaction to tragedy—seeking meaning in a way that enables us to distance ourselves from the possibility that such a thing could happen to us. Interestingly, I’ve never heard this phrase uttered by a parent who’s buried a child, or a widow who lost her beloved spouse. I’ve never heard someone with a life-threatening medical condition suggest ...
Read more