Lessons in Gratitude

I began the un-Christmasing of my house today. I got out boxes from the attic and other places where I keep them squirreled away, took the ornaments off the tree and set them out on the coffee table in the living room, and took down and wrapped up all the lights from the tree. It will be ready for me to take it out and down to the curb for collection by the recycling people on Monday. He was a good tree–Ichabod–if a little bit crooked and oddly shaped in a few places. I didn’t have a tree last year for a variety of reasons, so this was the first tree since I moved out on my own not quite two years ago. I had thought that taking it down might make me a little sad, but it was actually quite uneventful and without strong emotion; it simply was time. As is true of many things in life, there is indeed a time for everything, for every purpose under heaven.

Tonight I am still pondering the broad (and deep) concepts of forgiveness and letting go. Often when something keeps coming up as a theme in my conversations with other people or in my writing it means that there’s something I need to be exploring more deeply for myself. Today I spent a very long time on the phone with a good friend talking about a variety of issues concerning her relationship with her partner. As we talked, no matter where the conversation started, it kept coming back to her need to forgive, let go, and move on. Three simple things to do, right? Especially in one’s most intimate relationships. I listened, I asked questions, and I offered examples from my own life around the importance for her own sake of not holding onto hurt, anger, and resentments. “In the end,” I asked her, “who are you hurting by not letting go?” I asked the question several times over the course of the conversation until it became completely clear to her how much she was suffering by holding onto all the emotions and drama associated with the situation.

I have learned through much trial and pain and drama in my life the importance of forgiving, letting go, and moving on. I might recognize the importance of it and all the good reasons why I should engage in those actions in the interest of my own wellbeing and peace of mind and heart. But knowing the what and the why is one thing, knowing the how and implementing it is quite another. I’ve gotten a lot better at letting go mostly because I’ve had a lot of practice; I’ve experienced painful situations and I had the choice of hanging on to my righteous and rightful anger and indignation and potentially being eaten alive by it, or I could let the pain wash up, over and through me, experiencing it and as best I could to forgive myself and the person(s) who wronged me, and move past the pain toward healing. There is no manual for how to do this perfectly; there are broad concepts and general precepts to follow, but they must be supplemented by individualized instruction, personalized for every single individual on the planet. In other words, no one can really deal with our own internal stuff except us.

I don’t pretend to have a lock on understanding how to forgive, let go, and move on. As I told my friend today, “You get to practice this over and over again. You don’t simply forgive once and get on with life. Depending on how deep the wound, you will be forgiving for a long time, sometimes over years.” But at the end of all this forgiving is freedom for you. You’ll stop focusing on the other person, what they did to you or didn’t do enough of, and really begin realizing that the only person you have control over is you and that you own your own reactions to what happens around you. “If you can’t think of the benefits that come from forgiving someone, think about the consequences of your not forgiving them.” I told my friend. I’m not sure how much of all this got through to her, though when we were hanging up she thanked me and told me how much she appreciated having me in her life.  I told her I love her and that’s what we do for each other, we are there for one another, we’ve got each other’s back and all that other stuff that best friends do.

I am grateful for the opportunity to keep thinking about and practicing the acts of forgiveness, letting go and moving on. In order to learn and practice, it sometimes means that one must suffer, get hurt, experience loss and pain. But there’s peace and healing and wholeness as one grows into the practice of forgiveness, I am living testament to that. And in the end, it simply doesn’t get any better than that.

Did you ever have the feeling that you are on the verge of something but you don’t know what it is? It’s that sense of anticipation that something is brewing, building toward something but your totally in the dark about what it is. I’ve spent a fair amount of time in this space over the last year, feeling a sense of something just on the edge of my peripheral vision that I can’t quite see. At least I have the sense that whatever it is is good; there’s a positive or at least a neutral feel to this, rather than a sense of impending doom. I think there’s an element of the new year involved here: about setting intentions and thinking about plans and big ideas. I got out some of my big picture stuff that I created for myself a a few years ago. I want to see if my thinking has changed, what things I have accomplished, and what I need to adjust for my new circumstances.

Two years ago I was living in a nice home in California, was in the seventh year of a relationship, had an okay job situation. There were things slightly up in the air for me back then, and I wasn’t exceptionally happy (I see this as I look back on it), but things were relatively stable. Then things started to unravel rather quickly and my little planet got knocked into a different orbit. There’s that old saying that what doesn’t kill you makes you stronger. Well as I am definitely not dead, I suppose I must be stronger, or perhaps I’m just a tough old buzzard and going out that way wasn’t in the cards for me. Still, I’m grateful to be alive and relatively sane all things considered.

I am grateful for this journey that I’m on, and while there are a few things I wish were different at the moment, by and large I am quite fortunate, and I know it. I am grateful for the many, varied, wonderful people in my life–dear family, friends old and relatively new–and the opportunities I’ll have to meet new people as I get more settled into this new area. I am grateful that a few tiny seeds I planted a year ago are just starting to sprout and bear potential fruit, and I have a number of projects on my creative drawing board that I hope to breathe life into in the days, weeks, and months ahead. I will perhaps be making some changes to Lessons in Gratitude over time; I’m not sure yet what exactly what those might look like; it is another one of those things that is on the verge of something new that I’m not quite sure how it’s going to unfold yet. But if there’s one thing I learned from the uncertainties of 2012 it’s to relax as best I can, be in the moment, go with the flow and see what unfolds. Chances are good that what I allow to emerge naturally will be a whole lot better than something I force.

So as usual, I am grateful for the unfolding. Life is going to bring what it will, and I believe I will be nimble enough to roll with whatever it brings. I am grateful to be along for the ride. The educator and horticulturist Liberty Hyde Bailey said, “It is a marvelous planet on which we ride. It is a great privilege to live thereon, to partake in the journey, and to experience its goodness. ” Marvelous indeed, and I for one am grateful for the privilege of partaking in this journey and experiencing all the goodness that’s available to me. May it continue to be so!

Well I’ve gone and done it again. In spite of all my good intentions for getting things done early so I could get to sleep at a decent time I find myself starting to write later than I wanted to. Often that means posting it later, which ultimately means going to sleep late, which means waking up tired for my first day back to work in two weeks. Ugh!

I am laughing at myself for this brief tumble down into “catastrophic thinking,” that sort of cascade effect that happens when you think of one bad thing leading the the next bad thing until it bottoms out with something really negative happening. The amazing thing is that the entire thing happens in your mind and before you know it, panic and worry sets in making it even harder to go to sleep making you even tireder when you get up. A self-fulfilling prophecy. I’m grateful to have discovered that I have learned to arrest the thoughts as they start their downward spiral. It has not been and still is not easy to do this; old habits are hard to break, but with persistence, grit and determination it’s possible.

Today I had to talk to myself a number of times. As I continue to face challenges that could disrupt my sense of wellbeing, I can feel the occasional wave of panic start to build. “It’s okay,” I say aloud to myself, as if I were reassuring a young child, “Everything is going to be alright. All shall be well.” The ability to calm and soothe myself is one of the many skills I discovered and developed as I struggled my way through much of 2012. Regular readers of this blog will remember my oft-repeated quote from Julian of Norwich, “All shall be well, and all shall be well, and all manner of thing shall be well.” Given that all manner of thing(s) seemed to be creating challenges for at any given time, reminding myself that somehow everything was going to be alright was vitally important. Focusing my energy and attention on the good, even in the midst of the drama and traumas, was largely what allowed me to persevere. And although I am not quite yet on easy street, I am much farther along and grateful that the pressures I was under have eased.

In the coming months I am intending to be much more proactive in not simply arresting negativity when it appears, but to proactively cultivate positivity. I plan on participating in activities with other people that will help me bring more peace, joy, and wellbeing into my life. Engaging with others is important for me because I know I can tend to get too solitary. It also creates a community of accountability–not pressure necessarily, but when you do something with a “buddy” or in a group, it’s easier than trying to do it by yourself. I am looking forward to reengaging with a meditation group soon and am hoping to convince my sister(s) to join me in a variety of activities.

I am grateful for all the new energy that comes at the beginning of the year. I don’t plan on making a bunch of overly ambitious intentions for the coming year, but I do plan to take many smaller steps rather than one or two humongous ones. I’m still working on my plan for 2013, and am not creating undue stress or pressure about when the plan will be “finished.” Like the author, the plan is a work in progress and is likely to be a living, breathing document that expands and contracts as circumstances change. Always, allowing for the unfolding that inevitably happens, I am grateful.

The first day of 2013 has been a fairly low-key affair. I awoke late this morning, having stayed up well past midnight puttering around on various websites when I should have been sleeping. I have learned something new about myself, or perhaps I am remembering something old: I shouldn’t do anything–make decisions or purchases or take actions –after midnight. Particularly as I have gotten older, I simply lack the rational thought or will power to accomplish much worthwhile late at night. This is a useful thing to have remembered about myself, and can take it under advisement. It’s a good thing that I’ll be getting back to work this week–most weeknights I’m headed toward sleep well before midnight, and am certainly not on my computer that late. In any event, because of my late night, I woke up way later than usual so everything was pushed back. I didn’t accomplish much in a tangible sense, but at various points throughout the day I could feel myself ruminating on some things that I believe will begin to reveal themselves to me over the next few days. These include some of the typical planning types of things that one does associated with the start of a new year.

Last year I set two very reasonable intentions–one of which I accomplished with reasonable completeness, and the other I didn’t do so well with. In between those two, however, I managed to make progress in a number of other personal and professional areas that I hadn’t written anywhere, so even though I experienced significant challenges in 2012, I still believe that the year was a good one.  I am grateful for all the lessons learned, even those that felt painful. I’ve come to understand that so much of what I experience feels a certain way because of my perspective on it, and that if I can shift my perspective and see things even slightly differently, those experiences that felt so painful and difficult begin to lose their power. It’s a hard thing to describe, and I wish I had better words for it this evening, but I know it to be true: how I view things totally colors the way I experience them and the way I walk in the world. I make dozens of decisions each day about the things I choose to take personally, about what bothers me, what hurts, what makes me angry. And each time I have the opportunity to let go of the often knee-jerk reactions I have and let those things pass over me.

In 2013 I intend to spend more time pursuing peace, with as much of my attention and energy focused on the positive as I can muster. Even when things looked particularly dire and difficult, it was my ability to reach down and pull up a sense of gratitude for the things in my life that were good that helped keep me sane and whole. I fully expect that strengthening that particular muscle will serve me well in the coming year. I have a lot to learn about gratitude and hope to create time in the weeks and months ahead to spend more time reading and writing about it, as well as continuing to experience it in my daily life. In the meantime, I’ll keep exploring the gifts of gratitude in my life and sharing it here with you. Many blessings to us all in the year ahead. May it be so!

I am grateful today for something simple: productivity. There have been many times over the course of the year when I have written about being productive, about accomplishing tasks, about getting stuff done–sometimes from the perspective of feeling good about being productive and others times feeling frustrated at not having accomplished anything. Over the past few days I’ve felt a bit sluggish and was not scoring high on the “get stuff done” o’meter. “It’s vacation,” my friend reminded me, and while it’s true that I am on “holiday break” from work, I still feel like I need to be getting something done.

So today started out a little on the sluggish side, as it has recently. “Uh oh,” I thought to myself and wondered if I was going to sink into a slow-motion kind of funk in which I spent the day watching football, playing solitaire on my computer and accomplishing nothing. Instead, a funny thing happened on the way to the sofa: I passed it up, and instead in an uncharacteristic burst of energy, did some decluttering work in my bedroom where, yes, I still had a couple of half-unpacked boxes (shhhh, don’t tell my older sister. She hates boxes.) I did laundry, changed linens on my bed, and cooked a lovely chicken stew from a leftover roast chicken. I’ll be eating that over the next few days. I also did manage to watch a little football and relax in between cleaning activities. From a productivity perspective it has been a remarkably good day.

I am grateful for this sense of accomplishment in part because it could have easily gone the other way. There have been times when I could feel myself getting into a low-energy funk. Sometimes I would let myself get all the way down into it and splash around in it cranky and immobilized until I snapped myself out of it. Other times, when I could feel it coming on, I would push myself to get up and out of the house or I would put on music, dance around the house while doing work I needed to get done. This was particularly true in those weeks when I had to pack up my house to move. No matter how cranky I got during those days, I kept moving, kept working, pushing myself to keep going. The main difference then was that I had to keep working: I had a very quick deadline that was driving me. Today and throughout this holiday break, I haven’t had the external pressure pushing me to get something done. That’s what makes today’s level of productivity something I’m really pleased about.

I’m also grateful because I was to remain in a positive frame of mind throughout the day. Anyone who’s suffered from depression can tell you that sometimes you have a moment, a brief window in which you either arrest the sour mood before it develops or you can fall into it. I hit that window a few times over the course of this weekend and at least once today. And I was able to prevail and stay upbeat, managing to have a productive day in the process. I do not take these types of days for granted. I am not too far removed from times when I would lose hours of my life to sadness and depression. Slowly, over the course of weeks and months of taking intentional actions (including beginning to write this blog), I reclaimed my life and learned to stand strong in the midst of the challenges I faced. Though much of those difficulties have eased, I intend to retain and continue applying the lessons I learned back then. Gratitude remains central to my ongoing process.

I am glad to have had a solid, productive day. I celebrate it, but will not pressure myself to repeat this day tomorrow. I will let tomorrow take care of itself. For tonight, I will take my rest knowing that I did my best to make this a good day. And for that, I am grateful.

Tonight is one for random gratitude, I think. Sometimes I am not sure when I start typing this blog what I am going to write about. This is one of those nights, so bear with me as I meander my way through the topic.

I want to offer a post script to yesterday’s blog on forgiveness and talk for a moment about its close relative: letting go. I talked about forgiveness being a process, mostly benefiting the forgiver as much or more so than the forgiven. And I believe it to be true that forgiving others often frees us from burdens we perhaps didn’t know we were carrying. But the freedom isn’t instantaneous; it can take years for us to be able to move through the painful aftereffects of another’s actions toward us. This is where letting go becomes important. In forgiving I am choosing to let go of the often righteous and rightful pain inflicted on me by another human being. This is different from the old adage, “forgive and forget.” Forgive and let go doesn’t necessarily require me to forget, but to try as best I can to let go of the sting of it, the anger, and some of the destructive energy that comes about when we’ve been wronged. Holding onto it can be emotionally, physically, and spiritually damaging. And the really bad part is that while we’re sitting in our pain and anger, the other person has moved on, leaving us in our misery.

More on letting go…It is also about letting go of expectations or desires for a particular outcome. When someone has “done me wrong” I might forgive them, but expect that at some point or another they will recognize and acknowledge the wrong they did me and perhaps even apologize. This is wishful thinking; the other person might not ever come to a point of recognition of having done anything wrong, let alone come to a place of apologizing. It is  rare human indeed who comes back and says, “I realize that I hurt you by my actions and I’m sorry. Will you please forgive me?” So to expect that to happen is in my mind unrealistic and keeps you stuck and waiting. It may be a matter of expecting something that the other person simply cannot give. Forgive not looking for any particular outcome. True forgiveness, it seems to me, comes from the heart and does not look for reciprocation.

Again, this is all much more easily said than done; and I am hardly an expert on either forgiveness or letting go. But I have had some opportunities to practice both and believe it well worth the effort to keep working at it.  One other point about all this: the hardest and most important work is to forgive oneself. We all have our shortcomings, flaws and failings. We constantly make mistakes. I have learned to be much more patient, gentle, and kind with myself when I mess up. Forgiving ourselves or others is like exercising a muscle: it initially requires a great deal of effort, then as we get stronger, it requires less and less effort until we are strong and the muscle is well-shaped. Forgiveness requires constant exercise, consistent, regular workouts. I remain committed to strengthening this particular muscle, how about you?

I am grateful to have been forgiven in my life and to have exercised forgiveness; each is a blessing in its own right. Learning to let go is another important part of the process of my development as a human being. I look forward to continuing to strengthen my capacity to do both. May it be so.

Tonight I am grateful for the power of forgiveness. I am not entirely sure why this is on my heart tonight but it is. I know a number of people who are out of relationship with one another in part because of a refusal on one or both parties to forgive one another. Much has been written about forgiveness, and I don’t pretend to have wisdom over and above what great writers, thinkers, philosophers, and theologians have postulated about the subject. All I have are my own experiences and observations to share with you this evening, and if you are reading along then I thank you for considering these thoughts.

I’ve suffered my share of wrongs over the course of my life–some fairly significant injuries and others relatively harmless slights. I am grateful to have learned early on about the power of forgiveness, not so much in terms of what it does for the one who is forgiven but what it does for the one doing the forgiving. As I think back through my life and the various slings and arrows of outrageous fortune that I’ve suffered at the hands of other people, among the first things that I recognized is that it is quite possible, indeed perhaps quite likely that the person who “wronged” me has long since moved on and is probably not aware of or experiencing the same degree of pain and suffering that I am. I can stew all day in the juices of my righteous pain and indignation, but am while I am stewing in them, miserable and desolate, they may be whistling on down the road. It is my choice as to whether or not to remain mired in that painful, stuck place or to get myself out of it, and that has little or nothing to do with them.

I recognize that the notion of forgiving and moving on is much simpler to talk about than to actually accomplish, and it is not my intention to make light of what are often very painful situations. I have simply come to believe that my healing is in my hands, that the power of forgiveness gives back to me the ability to heal myself, to ease my own pain. If I am holding something against you it is at least as harmful to me as it is to you. The extent to which I can let it go begins the process of freeing us both from unnecessary painful entanglements. And oh yes, forgiveness is a process. There is no magical one-time touch of a wand and all is well. There are some ills for which we forgive repeatedly, sometimes over an entire lifetime. Deeper pain requires repeated, constant forgiveness. And more often than not, just when you think you’ve truly forgiven, a situation arises that renews that old hurt and you get to forgive yet again, a little more letting go, more freedom, more healing.

I am still recovering from the most recent series of unfortunate events that befell me a few years ago. I suffered a number emotional blows from largely unexpected places. I had a lot of forgiving to do, including forgiving myself for the part I played in landing where I did. That forgiving process continues to this day and I imagine it will go on for many many months to come. I still have a way to go with this forgiveness thing, but I know a good thing when I see it.

Sometimes I see people around me who are in conflict with one another, and it is painful to witness. Old slights, new issues or drama, all kinds of things emerge that seem to deepen the divides making the work of healing them seem difficult and the chances of success remote. I watch and pray, knowing there is little I can do to ease the situations. I nudge when and where I can, but recognize that as is the case with most things like this, it’s an inside job; that is, each person has to work on their own stuff and if in the end they can reconcile with one another, that is a beautiful thing.

I am grateful to be learning more about and practicing forgiveness. I spent a good deal of time today forgiving myself, not for anything major, but because it’s important that I don’t pile hurts on myself that I wouldn’t pile on another person. Sometimes the hardest person to forgive is ourselves, for while we can walk away from others who have hurt or offended us, we can’t walk away from ourselves. I sometimes carry a lot of anger toward myself for decisions I’ve made or actions I’ve taken that have resulted in a less than positive outcome. Those things too I must learn to let go, lest they eat away at me. Again, the power of forgiveness and healing are within my own hands; I have the power to release myself. I think there must be few gifts as precious as that of forgiveness. Whether one is the giver or the receiver, all are blessed. And for that, I am grateful.