Lessons in Gratitude Day 926–“I Feel Good…”

This morning as I walk in to and through my office suite, I feel good. I could say, “inexplicably good,” but it is largely explicable. I feel good in part because I purposed to do so; I began this day with the intent of feeling good–feeling the verb, not feeling the noun. This morning as I wrote in my journal, I decided that I would make a significant effort to go through the entire day without complaining. I had seen something on Facebook the other night about how spending an entire day without complaining would transform your day, your world. Even as I purposed that I would go through this day without complaining about anything, I knew I would be challenged as soon as I started onto the Beltway for my morning commute. I determined that I would not let the madness of the morning rush hour allow me to stray from the non-complaining stance I had taken. So I determined it, so it was. I went through the commute smiling and shaking my head each time someone did something “crazy,” and proceeded without comment or complaint.

Today I have chosen to actively feel good. Sometimes I/we humans act as if feelings are something that happen to me/us, that somehow they sneaks up on and attack me/us unawares. “I don’t know what happened. One minute I was minding my own business, feeling fine, when suddenly BAM! Out of nowhere sadness struck me.” And while I have certainly experienced unexpected bursts of emotion–many times, in fact–I also know that I can, with a degree of effort, feel just about any way I choose to. So why wouldn’t I choose to feel good? 🙂 (Yes, I did just insert a smiley face in the middle of this post.)

I also want to be very clear that I am not suggesting a fakey, “let’s all feel good,” psuedo-scientific approach to happiness and positivity. I can be as skeptical and hard-bitten as anyone: I have struggled with depression and sadness most of my life, and it drives me nuts when someone suggests that it’s as simple as looking in the mirror and repeating to yourself, “I am happy…” or the extremely depressing notion that 50 percent of our happiness is genetically predetermined and that somewhere around 40 percent is somehow magically within our control. Seriously? All you have to do is Google “the science of happiness” to get flooded with articles, TED talks, and YouTube videos filled with “facts” and information–much of it contradictory–on how this whole happiness thing works. So I don’t pretend to have the answers; more often than not I  have questions. But today I am simply grateful to be experiencing this happiness, this good feeling, in this moment, right now. (By the way, I ran into this YouTube video that connects happiness to gratitude…enjoy!)

I also decided, as I walked jauntily and happily back into my office (after going out to fill my water bottle) that I wasn’t going to get attached to this feeling good thing; the Buddhists caution about the hook of attachment–we feel good and we want to hold onto that feeling. But most of us know that if we hold onto something too hard, it almost always slips away from us. Picture a young child holding a bug, fluffy cat and what happens when the cat is ready to get down and child is unwilling to let go. What happens to the child and what happens to the cat? I have to believe that trying to hold onto a good thing, having an attachment to that thing, that feeling we get from that thing, generally ends in disappointment at best or disaster (getting scratched up by the fleeing cat of happiness) at worst.

So at 9:12 this morning as I write this, I am feeling good. I will not post this blog until after I get home from work (and the often more stressful and frustrating commute home)  and we’ll see how the day goes.

It’s 8:45 p.m. and I’m sitting here in my usual spot on my bed, propped against my study pillow, laptop on lap. I am reporting back in on my feeling good and my non-complaining pledge. I ended the day on a challenging note. I had back-to-back, difficult meetings where information was shared that caused me to fall into if not complaint then at least in exasperation and frustration. I tried not to complain or get too negative, but it was all I could do not to and had to bite my proverbial tongue on many occasions. I left at the end of the day feeling as discouraged walking out of the building at the end of the day as I felt good walking into the building at the beginning. Quite the study in contrasts, no?

And yet, at the end of this day, guess what? Yep, you got it–I am grateful. I was able to let go of my attachment to the early feel good. I had a really good meeting during which I shared with two trusted colleagues some personal stories from my past that helped illustrate some points I was making.  I realized as I pondered the sadness I was feeling as I headed out onto my commute home that while some of it was the events of the day, at least part of it I now recognize as the residual effects of missing both of my parents, particularly my mother. It was she to whom I looked for comfort when things were difficult, and even after 19 years I still wish I could call her with the childlike hope that she could make it all better. Those feelings were all tied up in the anniversary of my father’s death that I wrote about yesterday. Delayed reaction, I suppose.

So I am approaching all of this with a healthy dose of self compassion, self-forgiveness (thanks, Ric), and arms open wide to the full experience of the human condition–sorrow, grief, happiness, joy, frustration, disappointment, and dancing. As I prepare to take my rest for the evening I am exhausted but no longer disquieted and for that I am grateful. And I am grateful for all that I experienced in this day, start to finish. Tomorrow, as Scarlett O’Hara observed, is another day. I will be with whatever unfolds, approaching it with as much lovingkindness, compassion, joy and equanimity as I can muster, and, of course, gratitude.