Lessons in Gratitude Day 791

Posted on September 12, 2013 by mtchamblee

Today it took me over two hours to drive home from work (on an average day the drive home takes 55 to 75 minutes.) I left at a little after 4:00 p.m. and got home after 6. To say that traffic crawled would be an understatement. I am grateful to have made it home in a relatively calm frame of mind. I am incredibly, amazingly, almost indescribably tired. I have spun the wheel twice already. I might spin it again for good measure, then I will select a posting and repost it. I could also go with simple gratitude today, and keep writing original text, but again, tiredness wins out and I will stick with the wheel and see where it takes me.

I’ve said this before, but one of the things I am grateful for comes in the re-reading of blogs I posted a year or two ago. Tonight as I spun the wheel, deciding which post to potentially repost, I was sent to Day 21. It was good to read where my head was on day 21, back in July of 2011 at the start of this odyssey that has now stretched over two years and 790 blogs. I also ran across another good posting. But it was this post from early August of last year that captured my attention for this evening. Re-reading day 388 from August 5, 2012 reminded me of the importance of faith and perseverance in the face of intense pressure and deep uncertainty. It deepens my gratitude for all that I’ve learned on the journey of the last few years and how those lessons in gratitude are the gifts that keep on giving. Enjoy this post from last August:

Push, push, push.  That is how to keep moving, keep going, keep working, keep pressing on. That’s what I did today. Today has been a relatively productive day, though from looking around me I can’t fully tell what I’ve accomplished. Perhaps enough, perhaps not enough. We shall see. I am hitting crunch time right about now. There is a strong likelihood–actually a certainty–that I am moving locations within the next few weeks. My son has found another place to live and I need to do the same. I have been pursuing job opportunities out of state and have been waiting to hear the outcome of my most recent conversations with potential employers. But one way or another, regardless of what happens with my outstanding job prospects, I am leaving my current abode. It could still be in the Bay area or it could be back East somewhere. At the moment, I am not at all sure. My life hasn’t been this up in the air since I was in my mid 20s and facing an uncertain housing situation. Where I ended up living changed the course of my life for the next 10 years, but that is not today’s story. That is for another time.

I am grateful this evening for faith–for the belief that something positive is going to happen even though I can’t see what or how or when. Somehow I have faith that things are going to work out positively for me and that everything really will be alright. Sometimes I have very little basis for this belief, but I hold onto it nonetheless and for the most part it has proven to be true. Things have been challenging and at times incredibly stressful over the past several months, but somehow I am still standing strong. As I wrote in last night’s blog, I cry almost every day–not stormy, deep, sobbing cries, but more like brief, gentle, spring shower, kind of crying. Life is stressful to be sure, but that hasn’t prevented me from seeing beauty all around me, finding the good in the vast majority of situations I face, or having faith that, even in the midst of the struggle and drama and challenge,  everything is nevertheless going to be alright.

I am not a theologian and it is not my intention to “preach” about faith; there are many in the blogosphere who already do that way better than I could. And the faith I speak of is not necessarily about religious doctrine or dogma. It’s much more basic than that. To me the fact that I have faith–both in myself and some greater essence or divine spark or something greater than my individual self–is sort of a miracle in and of itself. It is something I cannot explain, where it is or where it came from and why it persists when perhaps other folks would have given up on it. That to me is the mystery of faith: there’s no particularly good reason for some of us to have faith, and yet we do. I wish I could explain this better, but the words are failing me, as often happens when trying to describe concepts like faith to another person. It can be such a personal thing, how can it be put into words another person can comprehend? And yet, that too happens. People have common indescribable experiences–they don’t know how to talk about it, but they don’t need to because others have their own experiences with faith. So if I am not making sense I apologize.

I don’t know where it comes from but I am sure grateful for it. It keeps me going on days when it feels like there’s no reason to take another single step. No, I may not be able to describe it, but I know it’s there. It may not make sense to someone, but it needs only to make sense to me. I by no means have the whole faith thing down perfectly, but even that doesn’t seem to matter. Just believe, my spirit reminds me. Everything’s going to be alright. And so it shall.

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Lessons in Gratitude Day 790

Posted on September 11, 2013 by mtchamblee

Sometimes I underestimate myself: my gifts and talents, my experiences, education, personality, and all the myriad traits and skills I bring into everything I do. I spend so much time being critical (and sometimes downright mean) to myself for all the things I don’t do well, the mistakes I perceive that I make, the ways that I fail to live up to my expectations of myself and those that others may or may not have of me. I don’t need their disapproval; I am more than capable of doing a number on myself, of disapproving of myself. But no more. Somehow I am going to stop being my own harshest critic and at a minimum  become my own cheerleader.

Over the course of the past few days I have observed myself, as if from an outside perspective, as I interacted in meetings with people at work and in various settings. And I had to admit, I was impressed  with myself. I was strategic, creative, enthusiastic, impassioned, politically savvy, and smart. And as hard as it was for me to write all of that without squirming, if I look at it objectively, it is true that I am a pretty awesome person. Now if only I can truly believe and remember that.

I am grateful this evening for the revelation that I need to learn to be by own best friend instead of my own worst enemy, to expect good things from myself rather than criticizing myself for small or imaginary errors. I am noticing that I am not alone in suffering from this particular disease. All around me I see people who are almost incapable of believing that they do anything well. They hold themselves in such low regard, magnifying the things they do poorly and barely acknowledging the things they do well, and then they speak horribly to and about themselves. If they heard someone talking to a child in the way they talk to themselves, they would rush to defend and protect the child while dressing down the person who spoke so cruelly and harshly to her; and yet they don’t recognize that they are turning a cruel, harsh voice on themselves.

I am getting better at recognizing those times when I am being mean to myself, berating myself for something I perceive I did or did not do. I catch myself mid-sentence as I’m in the midst of saying something mean to myself and address myself with gentleness, kindness, and compassion. “You’re doing the best you can,” I sometimes say aloud, “Look at how well you’re doing.” This isn’t always easy to accomplish: I still catch myself being harsh and have to calm myself down and remember to be kind. This, like so many other things in my life is a process.

In a now famous quote, author and spiritual teacher Marianne Williamson turns this idea that we are somehow inadequate on its head:

Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate. Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure. It is our light, not our darkness that most frightens us. We ask ourselves, Who am I to be brilliant, gorgeous, talented, fabulous? Actually, who are you not to be? You are a child of God. Your playing small does not serve the world. There is nothing enlightened about shrinking so that other people won’t feel insecure around you. We are all meant to shine, as children do. We were born to make manifest the glory of God that is within us. It’s not just in some of us; it’s in everyone. And as we let our own light shine, we unconsciously give other people permission to do the same. As we are liberated from our own fear, our presence automatically liberates others.

I would do well to remember this. What would it look like if I lived a life as big as I feel I am meant to live? Every once in a while I get a glimpse of that bigness, that sense of “powerful beyond measure” that Williamson describes. What would that look like for you? Every day is an opportunity for me to practice kindness, compassion, and generosity toward myself, to see myself as a blessing and my life as blessed. I still have a way to go before I even approach being able to see myself as powerful, accomplished, worthy, etc. but I am grateful for each small step I take in that direction.

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Lessons in Gratitude Day 789

Posted on September 11, 2013 by mtchamblee

I am grateful this evening for synchronicity. They say everything happens for a reason and sometimes through an interesting turn of events the universe gives us little gifts. Today I was on my way home from work cruising along at 20 mph in the normal gridlock, listening to my audiobook and minding my own business. I hadn’t been paying attention to my phone, which had apparently been ringing and I hadn’t heard it. I looked down to see my friend calling me. By the time I’d answered she was gone. When I called her back she laughingly informed me that she had seen me in the midst of all the traffic on the American Legion Memorial Bridge and had honked and waved and I had remained steadfastly looking at the road ahead, neither looking left or right.

“What are you doing out here? Where are you?” I asked, stunned that someone I know and my friend of all people would “happen” to run across me in the midst of the tens of thousands of cars that course along the inner loop of the Beltway at that particular hour. She replied that she was less than a mile ahead of me. “Oh that’s so weird,” I tell her. “Do you want to hang out and have dinner?” It’s rare to connect with my friend during the week–our schedules are too different.  She informed me that she had thought she might call me and see if I wanted to have dinner, but when she’d left her office and started down the road realized that she’d forgotten her phone at work. She had to go all the way back to her workplace to get it. If she hadn’t have forgotten her phone and had to go back for it, she would have been on the highway much earlier and our paths would not have crossed. By forgetting her phone, she was delayed enough on the drive home to be cruising  home exactly at the same time as I was going over the bridge and stuck in the exact same traffic a half mile ahead of me. I was able to catch up with her and we were able to get off the highway and go have dinner before going home.

Synchronicity: forgetting your phone, which at first glance seems like an unfortunate mistake until you realize that it puts you in exactly the perfect spot to connect with a friend, that out of all the thousands of cars on the beltway, you encounter them. Now if that isn’t a sign, I don’t know what is. I have learned to trust such “coincidences” when they occur, and this was an amazing one. In the end we spent a nice couple of hours catching up and chatting about a wide variety of things, including the concept of being in the right place at the right time to truly make a difference.

I am grateful for all those little moments when something shifts, something aligns exactly right. It couldn’t have been orchestrated more perfectly today. And for that, and for having the strength and energy to write and post this evening’s blog after midnight, I am exceedingly grateful.

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Lessons in Gratitude Day 788

Posted on September 9, 2013 by mtchamblee

Tonight I decided to spin the wheel and see what the random number generator would offer us. It has been a long tiring day and I am anxious to share some reflections about gratitude before going to sleep. I am grateful that on the first spin I hit a posting that I really needed to reread for myself. Lately I’ve been stuck in a few places and needing to remind myself that when I’ve needed to find a solution, I’ve generally been able to figure something out. That is a skill I want to continue to hone: the ability to react to something with a sense of optimism that I’ll figure things out. Enjoy this post from March 23, 2012:

Ah the close of another day, one filled with little moments of grace, strength and protection, love of family and canine companions, wonderful spring sunshine and flowers and flowering shrubs and trees opening to the spring sun and rains. Let’s see, what can I find to be grateful for?

I am grateful for optimism. I hadn’t really considered myself much of an optimist. Though by no means have I ever considered myself a cynic, I placed myself somewhere around realist pragmatist tending a little toward pessimism. But oddly it has been through the hard times of the past 12 to 15 months that I have found an almost ridiculous sense of optimism. My new motto has become, “We’ll figure it out.” It usually has to do with something that’s going to require financial means that at that moment I’m not quite sure we have or where we’re going to get it. It used to be my way of stalling because I really had no idea how we were going to do whatever it was that needed to be done. But that simple statement of faith has tended to become reality. We have figured it out on many occasions. Many days it hasn’t been pretty, but it’s been present, and that’s all that matters.

This is not magical thinking. Every time I’ve said, “We’ll figure it out” we did just that; thinking through/taking action on ideas and strategies to do whatever “it” was that needed to be worked/figured out. Put more plainly,we didn’t wait around for something to happen,we figured it out. If that meant asking someone for help,I asked. If it meant figuring out a different way of doing something or deciding what we could do without to help us save what we needed,we did that.  So “we’ll figure it out” has become a sort of optimistic self-fulfilling prophecy. It’s definitely something I plan to keep working on.

Neuroscientists believe that we can actually “sculpt”our brains; that when we put our minds toward thinking a certain way we can alter our brains and all kinds of things around us. (I have to do much more reading on this so I sound a bit more articulate about it than I am right now.) A group of neuroscientists have spent time studying spiritual leaders like the Dalai Lama and others and are learning that people who spend time in meditation particularly those cultivating compassion toward others activate certain centers in the brain that bring about a lasting sense of wellbeing. I am all for sculpting my brain by being mindful and intentional about the things I am putting my mental and emotional energy toward. Rather than expending it in anxious fretting about what were going to do or how we’re going to get out of a difficult situation, etc. I can choose to say with a sense of hope and optimism,backed by appropriate action (“right effort”) “we’ll figure it out”and expect that’s exactly what’s going to happen. So far it seems to be working.

I said the other day that practicing gratitude is like lifting weights–as we get stronger we add heavier weights and get stronger (and more sculpted). Likewise cultivating optimism,generosity,compassion,joy,equanimity and other attributes require exercise. Much of this begins with the intentions we hold. When I intend to be more grateful, optimistic, generous, compassionate, joyous, equanimous, etc. and take steps that move me in those directions,I can’t help but strengthen myself in those areas. I am slowwwwwlllllyyyy moving toward a place of deepening this understanding and just barely scratching the surface of cultivating a meditation practice that will take me where I want to go. For now I am very much in the “figure it out stage” in this and so many other areas of my life. What I am learning very clearly is that panicking is a waste of energy and time. Saying to myself, even when I barely believed it, “this is going to work out” has happened almost every time. And when what I wanted didn’t work out in the way I had originally wanted it to, it sometimes turned out better than I’d planned.

If you’d have told me I’d be at a place where almost every day is an adventure or a mystery waiting to unfold rather than a systematic,organized, I-know-what’s-going-to-happen-next phenomenon, I’d have said you were crazy, that I didn’t know how to live spontaneously and carefree particularly around important matters like relationships, employment, and finances. But I am learning a lot about planning without being attached to the plans or the outcomes, that it is alright to not know what’s going to happen or what needs to happen next. Because when things don’t go exactly as planned or something unexpected comes up that throws everything up in the air, I’m learning to say, “That’s okay,we’ll figure it out.”

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Lessons in Gratitude Day 787

Posted on September 8, 2013 by mtchamblee

According to Genesis as God was creating the heavens and the earth, “he” would create some new element (fashioning light and calling it “day” and calling the darkness “night,” and all the various other God was doing) and would look back at everything at the end of the day and see that it was good. Every day God created something really cool and at the end of it looked around and decided, “Yep, that’s pretty good.” I am a believer in evolution, the big bang, and the many scientific explanations for how we got to be here. That said, there is something very beautiful in the language of the creation story as told in the first chapter of Genesis, the first book of the Bible. It stirs the imagination to think about something so wondrous being envisioned and created out of the formless void.

So what does this have to do with gratitude? Well now I feel kind of silly about it, but today I felt such a sense of accomplishment that by 3 p.m. I looked around at all that I had gotten done and definitely saw that it was good. I woke late this morning (around 8:30) and wrote in my journal as usual before starting into my kind of typical Sunday kinds of things; laundry, cleaning, and grocery shopping are the regular order of the day. But some days feel different than others, and this was one of those days. I dug into the day’s activities with unexpected vigor and enthusiasm, extending my normal cleaning activities to include thoroughly cleaning out the microwave and (gasp) scrubbing all four drip pans under the burners on my stovetop and even the yucky space underneath them. I’m telling you I was on a roll, and the majority of my work was done before I headed out to the store at 1 p.m.

This represented an unusual spurt of industriousness that I don’t often exhibit. Sometimes I don’t have the energy or inclination to engage in what perhaps seems like mundane undertakings–which they are–choosing instead to sit somewhat idle and do very little of any measurable value. Don’t get me wrong: sometimes after a tiring week I don’t see anything wrong with totally crashing on the sofa for some part or most of a weekend simply to allow my body and mind the rest and recovery time it needs to be able to function during the week. But today, even as I would finish one task, I had the energy and enthusiasm to take up another, and at the end of it I put my hands on the hips, nodded in satisfaction and saw that it was good.

What can I say? Tonight’s blog is a little quirky. But I am indeed grateful for the feeling of having had a good day in which I managed to get a lot of things done, and not simply done, but done with gusto. I went above and beyond today and have the shiny drip pans and clean sheets to show for it. And as I prepare to close things down for the evening and take my rest, I can look upon my various creations and accomplishments and say it is good. And for that I am most satisfyingly grateful.

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Lessons in Gratitude Day 786

Posted on September 7, 2013 by mtchamblee

Tonight I am resting myself, oh so grateful that it is Saturday. I have found myself drowsing in front of the television that was playing a college football game, my computer on my lap with several open emails in various stages of being written and sent. I must confess that I am happy that we are approaching autumn. Not only is it my favorite season of the year, but as a football fan it signals the return of my favorite athletic season. I have been a football fan for as long as I can remember. I grew up in South Bend, Indiana, and on a clear day I could hear the sounds from the Notre Dame football stadium, and every Sunday in the fall you could count on most of my family gathered in the living room or family room watching the Chicago Bears. College football started last Saturday and professional football began on Thursday, but begins in earnest tomorrow (Sunday), and I am a happy camper. I don’t really want to say that I am grateful for football season to be underway: that seems a little frivolous given the usual subject matter of this blog. Let me simply say that I am pleased.

Lately I have been writing fresh blogs; Thalia the muse puts in regular appearances. Today, however, given the lateness of the hour at which I am completing this blog (it’s after 11 p.m. EST here), I decided to spin the wheel and offer a portion of a blog from a previous blog. As often happens when I spin the wheel, I land on a number of entries and read through them trying to decide which one I’m going to use in a given night. Tonight as I was searching through past blogs I was moved by the hope and optimism I read in some of the posts as well as empathizing with the struggles with fear and depression I was feeling, particularly in the early days. I read blogs from August and October of 2011 in which I was expressing the concern that at five and seven months (respectively) of unemployment perhaps I would not find a job as easily as I’d hoped. Little did I know as I was writing those posts that I would go nearly 18 months without full-time employment. The anxiety and fear of those days truly tested my resolve to continue seeking and writing about what was good in my life.

I am grateful to have made it through a fairly challenging time in my life and even more grateful to have this blog and my morning journal to chronicle the journey I’ve been on over the past two-plus years. It gives me a measuring tape by which I can track and measure my progress from where I was to where I am right now. So I spun the wheel a few times tonight and landed on a post from August 2012 from which I’d like to share the following excerpt about living in the moment. Enjoy!

I am grateful for the times when I am truly living in the moment. I am focused on what is immediately in front of me, not fretting over all that I did or didn’t do in the past or freaking out about all the things that could happen in the future. Yes, I have things I wish I had done or said differently, times I’d behaved differently, but that was then and I already did what I did, said what I said, and acted how I acted. It’s a done deal. And while I have a number of things I need to do and have happen on my behalf in the days and weeks ahead, there’s little I can do in this moment except to continue to plan and prepare as best I can without being deeply attached to the outcome. Things can change in the blink of an eye, throwing all that careful planning and preparation completely out of whack. So it is useless and in fact quite harmful to expend a lot of energy fretting about what’s going to happen next week, when I really should have my attention and energy on what’s in front of me at the moment. “Sufficient unto the day is the evil thereof.”

This all sounds well and good, but it is a lot of work and I’d say I’m only moderately successful at achieving this state of enlightenment. I have moments of freak out nearly every day; it’s not about not having them, it’s about knowing how to handle it when you do have them. I talked about this a bit in yesterday’s blog when I wrote about the drill sergeant and the teacher–the motivator and the nurturer. Whatever comes up in the moment, I try to work with it–breathe through it, assure myself that I am not going to die and that everything in fact is going to be alright, calm myself down, and then get on with whatever I was doing when the freakout first interrupted the orderly flow of life.  I am not an expert at it, but it is a muscle I plan to keep exercising until it gets well-defined and strong. And given some of the questions I am facing about my future I’ll have plenty of opportunity to exercise. Still, I am grateful for the moments of calm that I have in the midst of the craziness. In those moments I remember that life is good, it is sweet, and there is much to be grateful for.

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Lessons in Gratitude Day 785

Posted on September 6, 2013 by mtchamblee

Tonight I am once again grateful for simple things. Like special glasses that I wear that help me see better when I’m working at my computer…that unfortunately I left on my desk at work. So for this entire weekend I will be squinting at the screen through my regular glasses . They are trifocals, but without the line it’s hard to know where to look, and I’ve never been fully persuaded that there are actually three zones in the lenses. But alas, for the next two days I’ll have to take it on faith that there are three different areas of these glasses and do my best to write without significant eyestrain in the process. Nevertheless, here are some simple blessings for which I am grateful for this day.

I am grateful for the access I have to an abundant supply of relatively clean, “fresh” water for drinking, bathing, cooking, and the myriad other uses for water. This morning at 5:30 when I went into the bathroom to brush my teeth, I turned on the hot water spigot and a thin stream of water dribbled out of the faucet. An hour later it was even worse, and I could barely get enough of a stream from the shower head to take a very quick five-minute “spit bath” before the water ran out completely. I walked around to various places in my house to see if I could hear any unnatural gurgling coming from any place and I could not. I also wondered if I had forgotten to pay my water bill, though I reasoned that if I had they would have warned me at least once before shutting it off. Besides it wasn’t cut off, there was still some trickling from the faucets. Eventually I decided to call the water company and when I did I got an automated message announcing that a water main had broken somewhere in our neighborhood. Once I realized that the problem was bigger than just my house and there was nothing to be done about it, I headed to work.

So often I take the availability of water for granted, until of course it is suddenly unavailable. We come into the bathroom or the kitchen of our dwelling places and assume that when we turn that knob or lift that handle that water is going to come pouring out of the faucet. Most days it does; today it did not, and that served as a reminder to me of how blessed I am to live someplace where water is instantly and automatically available and distributed throughout my house. I am also grateful to have the wherewithal to be able to pay the bill that keeps the water flowing in my home. Such a simple and yet wonderful blessing, one that many people throughout the world would love to enjoy as well.

I am grateful for it being Friday. I often come home and collapse right after I eat dinner, and I was in fact quite ready to do so again, but for an unexpected phone call and invitation from my younger sister to go out to dinner, just the two of us. So even though I’d mostly changed out of my work clothes, I put them back on (Ruth was still dressed from her work day and looked quite nice, so I decided to spruce myself back up a little bit.) We had a lovely dinner and hung out for a couple of hours (which was not nearly enough time) and caught up on a variety of things that we hadn’t had a chance to chat about. Though we will likely hang out again tomorrow, it is likely to be out at a soccer game or spending time with the whole family. It was nice to be just the two of us, which we haven’t done in a long time. The simple blessing of connecting one-on-one with a much-loved sister: it doesn’t get much better than that.

I find as I wind down toward sleep that I am aware that another week has passed. These days and weeks are hurtling by: the summer came and went almost before I knew it and before I turn around good we’ll be celebrating the autumn and winter holidays. Amazing the way time is flying. As I think about this week just past I feel an odd sense of satisfaction. It isn’t that it has been a good, solidly productive week–it actually was a “short” week, being that Monday was a holiday. No, it was a mixed-bag of a week: some parts good, some parts challenging, some parts neutral. But at the end of the week, at the end of this day I can look back at it and see that it was good. That might not make sense, but in the end it’s all a matter of perspective, isn’t it? In this moment right now, life is good. And for that I am most simply and quietly grateful.

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Lessons in Gratitude Day 784

Posted on September 5, 2013 by mtchamblee

Grateful for tonight’s blog guest written by my “big brother,” Alan Chamblee. Enjoy!

~~~~~~~~~~~~~

I have read this gratitude blog each and every day that my sister has written it. At some point, she asked me if I would like to write it one night for her. I have seen my niece Michal and my sisters Ruth and Sandy take their turns at writing the blog, but I did not think I was up to the task. However, since Terry has mentioned more than once that she may soon stop writing the blog on a daily basis; I decided that I better take my turn, since I am grateful for many things.

First of all, I am grateful for many of the very same things that we are all grateful for, the most important of which is family. Family is the reason I exist, it is the reason that I breathe, and it is the blood running through my veins. I am grateful to have come from such a strong family back ground. I was taught at an early age that loving and looking out for my brother and sisters was my responsibility.  While it has been stated previously in this blog that I was the “mischievous” kid of the bunch, I have taken my responsibility to look out for my family seriously. All of my family. I am grateful to know that they are always there for me also. I don’t think that there is a single time I have ever needed to lean on one of my siblings that they were not there for me. For this I am grateful.

I am also grateful for being blessed with 3 wonderful children. They have taken the best parts of their Mother and I and have become smart, compassionate, beautiful human beings that any parent would be proud of. They are certainly not perfect, but they will make this world a much better place for having them in it. For that I am also grateful.

I am grateful for good health and a strong back, it has allowed me to do the things that I needed to do to raise my family. My health has allowed me to not only work to support them, but also run, play catch, throw the ball, chase the kids, etc. I am grateful for all of this!

Finally, I am grateful to God for giving me all that he has given me. Every time I have asked him to help me be a better man, a better father or a better husband, he has always heard my plea. Whenever my knees buckled under the weight of the load I was carrying, he lifted something off. Each time I felt that I was lost or did not have the energy to carry on, he showed me the way or he carried me. For all these things I am grateful. I have always been a “glass half full” kind of person, it is never hard for me to find something to be grateful for, and today I am grateful for this opportunity to share my blessings!

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Lessons in Gratitude Day 783

Posted on September 4, 2013 by mtchamblee

I am grateful tonight for staying power, for the power of perseverance. I know I write about perseverance a lot, but when you deal with a lot of tough stuff on a semi-regular basis, or you’ve been through a lot, you know a bit about what it takes to stay in the fray, to hold on for dear life, to stand strong, to hang in there, to persevere. You get the idea. So yeah, I’m grateful for all that stuff. You could take every quote there is about standing strong and I’ve likely said it to myself, in my head or aloud, like a mantra. It is the “ha ha hee” of breath that I huffed out during labor pains when I was delivering my firstborn. It is the “eye-of-the-tiger,” or the “when-the-going-gets- tough-the-tough-get-going” mentality that has made me put one foot in front of the other when I flat out didn’t feel like moving.

Don’t get me wrong: this isn’t some Rambo, GI Jane, tough-as-nails, macho, bravado that you see in action movies. This is a heartbroken, tears pouring from my eyes, wailing in anguish, screaming in rage and frustration kind of perseverance that is not pretty or glamorous or glory-filled. It is an almost surprised, bemused, I-don’t-know-how-I’m-still-here kind of staying power that makes no sense, it defies logic. Again, don’t mistake the things I’ve gone through for the horrors of war, the desperation of poverty and homelessness, the heart-wrenching death by violence of a loved one. My persistence has involved standing in the midst of first-world problems like losing my job, the ending of a significant relationship, losing my home, and the death of a parent by natural causes at a ripe old age.

Mine have been difficult and lamentable losses to be sure: it’s not my intention either to glorify and exaggerate or minimize and underestimate what I’ve gone through. This is not about the pain olympics and whose suffering is worse or less difficult than mine. It is simply an acknowledgment that I have suffered loss and learned to manage it, to overcome the challenges I’ve faced and gotten a little stronger in the process. I am grateful for these experiences for what they have taught me about myself; though I am not particularly interested in or anxious to repeat them.

And so at the end of this day I am grateful, as I often am, for the simple, basic things so many of us take for granted: a full belly and a safe place to rest my head for the night; a body that mostly functions well–limbs that obey what my mind asks them to do and a mind that knows what to ask of them; a job to get up and go to and safe, reliable transportation to get me there; the mental faculties to be able to contribute meaningful thoughts and ideas over the course of a day; and of course family members and friend whom I love and who love me back. That alone–the presence of love in my life–makes me rich beyond measure. And as corny as it sounds, it is that love that makes everything else possible, it provides the motivation and the will I need to keep going when I want to sit down in the middle of everything and give up.

“Haters gon’ hate, I’m a lover,” my brother declared on his Facebook page tonight. He’s right: there will always be people who are negative, mean, spiteful, angry, in other words, haters. There will likely always be inhumane humans and manmade disasters and wars, and all kinds of drama, trauma, and tremendous challenges and strife. And there will always be people who with perseverance, hope, faith, determination and sheer force of will stand strong and prevail no matter what. That gives me hope and reminds me that when I stand strong I am usually not standing alone. And for that reminder, I am most definitely grateful.

Posted in Gratitude, Overcoming Challenges, Overcoming Fear, Perseverance, Resilience, Simple Blessings/Gratitude | Leave a comment

Lessons in Gratitude Day 782

Posted on September 3, 2013 by mtchamblee

Tonight I decided right off the bat that I would spin the wheel and see what wise blog post it pointed toward. It has felt like a long, though in reality it is no longer than usual. Last night I went to bed later than I’d wanted to, and though I slept heavily, no doubt glad to be back in my own bed, it couldn’t make up for a couple of days of poor quality sleep while I was in Minneapolis. So though I am tired I find that I am at war with myself: part of me wants to spin the wheel, cut and paste tonight’s blog in, and go to bed. The other part of me wants to write about some ideas that are tickling at the periphery of my consciousness but that I am perhaps too tired to articulate fully or well. And so the battle rages and nothing is finding its way onto the screen. I am grateful tonight for the voice of wisdom ringing in my head telling me to spin the wheel, make it easy.

I am all for making it easy when I can. But sometimes what life hands you doesn’t allow for easy. A few years ago when it felt like the bottom fell out of my life, I had a hard time finding easy. It was kind of like hanging off the edge of a cliff and I couldn’t even see the bottom of where I might land if I took the “easy” route of simply letting go and falling. Letting go, as in giving up, was not an option: I had people who were depending on me, so even if I wasn’t hanging on for my own sake, I was certainly hanging on for them. So I clung to the edge for a little while until I could get my breath enough to slowly drag myself up the cliff and pull my body onto level ground, crawling away from the edge lest I threaten to topple over it again. I lay there resting until I could get myself to my knees and then up onto my feet and moving slowly away from the edge and toward  life and possibility. I am grateful for the long, difficult journey back from the edge. It hasn’t been easy, and I’m probably not all the way back yet, but I’ve come a long way.

Sometimes I get weary, still feeling wobbly from all those months of challenge and uncertainty. But I remember that I made it through tough times with the love and support of family and friends, and that same love is holding and carrying me as I continue moving forward. The last few years have taught me a lot about resilience, about perseverance, about the will to pull yourself up and keep going when it would be a whole lot easier to simply quit. But mama and daddy didn’t raise a quitter and while there’s nothing at all wrong with taking a rest, sitting down in the midst of a trauma and giving oneself a timeout of sorts, it’s not acceptable to remain there. And so no matter how tired I am, I stand up and keep moving as best I can.

I gratefully return to my old standby poem that reminds me to stand strong and carry on. I offer it here, once again, for your consideration:

Invictus
Out of the night that covers me,
Black as the Pit from pole to pole,
I thank whatever gods may be
For my unconquerable soul.
In the fell clutch of circumstance
I have not winced nor cried aloud.
Under the bludgeonings of chance
My head is bloody,but unbowed.
Beyond this place of wrath and tears
Looms but the Horror of the shade,
And yet the menace of the years
Finds,and shall find,me unafraid.
It matters not how strait the gate,
How charged with punishments the scroll.
I am the master of my fate:
I am the captain of my soul.
by William Ernest Henley,1875
Posted in Gratitude, Overcoming Challenges, Overcoming Fear, Perseverance, Resilience | Leave a comment