Gratitude – the gift with hidden powers

If you’ve been following these blogs, you will know that so far we have explored Slowing Down, Stillness and Beauty, and now we come to Gratitude. I think of these four as a package, a collection of allies helping us to build resilience and to find some grounding, peace and space, especially important in days like these when anxiety, loss and uncertainty are ever present for so many.

What is Gratitude?

At points in my life, gratitude has been formalised, ritualised and built into routine – “Grace before Meals”, or prayers where the “Thank you” comes before the “Please”. At other times I have experimented (very briefly) with “Gratitude Journalling” – making lists of the 5 things I’m grateful for today, determined to find 5 even on my darkest days. There have been times when I’ve resorted to delving into the most basic – a bed to lie in, a house to live in, food to eat etc – and all of these deserve to be recognised with thanks, and acknowledgement of what can be taken for granted. However, there is a slight hint of guilt and “Look how much has been given to you when you don’t really deserve it” built into many of these processes, either explicitly or in my inner world of old messages and traditions – “You should be grateful for what you’ve got. Think of the starving in Africa” was my mother’s refrain when, as a 6 year old, I failed to be “grateful” for the plate of cold scrambled egg in front of me, and had to sit at the table until it was gone (which it wasn’t, several hours later, along with its soggy cold toast).

Each of these systems has value, but the routines can become meaningless or trite over time, especially if gratitude is a “should”, or if it feels like I’m doing this in order to earn myself something else – in a religious sense it’s like an offering to the gods to gain favour, in a neuroscientific sense I’m wanting the prize of calm, and the mental shift away from anxiety that perhaps I can achieve if I get that gratitude list right.

There is some truth that “practising gratitude” can alter our mental emotional state. We can move away from the “Fight, Flight, Freeze” settings in our brain and biochemistry, if we consciously focus our thinking into looking for the good, looking for the gift. And, I think we are missing something if that is all that we do – and perhaps this is why “counting your blessings” can become a bit of a shallow “meme” if we are not careful.

Toko-Pa Turner, in her book “Belonging: Remembering Ourselves Home”, frames gratitude a little differently. Reading her work has shifted how I think about gratitude, and has led me to place it at this particular point in this series of blogs. She writes “When you are genuinely attentive to life, gratefulness is the inevitable reply to all the things conspiring to endow you with their beauty and intricate genius”. So, we need to slow down, breathe, drop into stillness, connect with beauty, and then our natural genuine response, from deep in our soul and our being, will be gratitude – and gratitude of the kind that makes a difference.

I noticed this yesterday, sitting in my garden, taking a break between household tasks and client work, playing with an App on my phone that “listens” to birdsong, analyses it and suggests which bird might be responsible for a particular song. From somewhere in a hedge a beautiful song began, repeated several times and then paused, leaving me almost holding my breath and wanting more. I fumbled with my phone, managed to switch the App’s recorder on and waited for what seemed like an eternity. At last, the song came again, and the App showed me the Wren that was responsible, the visual tracing of the song frequencies, the image of the Wren and the glory of the song itself all combining to provide me with a moment of sheer wonder. I could see the intricacy of the song on the tracing – the Wren’s “genius” if you like – and I could wonder at the genius of the App developer who had created this window into a deeper connection with Nature. I think I actually said “Thank you” out loud – I couldn’t help it – to both bird and human and the glory of the living world I was sitting in. My heart was alive, my soul stretching to be with the song, and the life expressed in it.

This is the greatness of gratitude when it is a response to beauty and generosity rather than an expectation, a form of words, or a cognitive task of list making. Don’t get me wrong, the list making and formalising of gratitude has its place, but if that’s as far as we get we truly miss out.

And here’s the rub, gratitude of this kind, gratefulness that comes from allowing a gift to touch us, requires us to open ourselves a bit further, to shift how we see ourselves and others and the world, and to find compassion and welcome for the raw places, the griefs, wounds and previously guarded vulnerable spots, that will inevitably be exposed if our hearts are brought to life again.

As Toko-Pa puts it “Gratitude resensitises those places we have armoured over until they become palpable to the atmosphere of beauty rushing in from all sides to reach us”.

This is why I was moved to tears by the gentleness and recognition in the face, voice and words of the woman on the make up counter in a department store I visited after Christmas, as she asked if she could offer me a free make-over – because she could see from my “almost hair” and my somewhat grey complexion that I had had cancer and chemotherapy. She saw my physical vulnerability, and (because of her own experience with cancer) she knew something about what that challenge might have meant for me, the loss of vitality, the impact of physical changes due to surgery and chemo, the ongoing challenge of working out how to “Come back to life”. She gave me a gift in terms of advice and technique, (dealing with no eyebrows or eyelashes, dealing with dry exhausted skin), and of course, she sold me a couple of products, but beyond this was a kindness that touched places where I was still raw and confused, and a knowing compassion: “I’ve been through it, you will come back to life – look you are starting to already”.

I was grateful, in words and beyond words. And, like the mythical serpent biting its own tail, a symbol of the end being the beginning, I do not know which came first in creating that response – her generosity or my openness to receive it. To receive is a huge challenge for many of us, especially those who chose the “caring professions” as our career path. Receiving means being open, being vulnerable, and being willing to be touched at all levels by another, even if sometimes that “other” is Nature. In the department store after Christmas, I was more open than I would normally be, having learned almost too much about vulnerability and physical frailty through the treatment process. I made eye contact with the woman – I have a tendency to hide myself from others at times, and avoiding eye contact is a great way of doing that. I took what my childhood story tells me is a big risk – I allowed myself to be seen in my vulnerability – and I allowed myself to accept what was being offered, instead of rushing away, politely saying thank you but no thank you.

Sometimes we need to learn how to “Bear the Pleasure” of being given a gift. Gratitude will flow if and when we can allow ourselves to enter the experience fully, to be touched, to have our raw places unexpectedly, but gently, met and soothed, sometimes with the release of trapped grief, or fear or loneliness. Tears can flow – we can be moved by generosity, beauty, joy, and cry tears of loss, or longing, as we are softened by the gift. Sometimes, the belief systems that limit how and when we are allowed to feel “good enough” or “worthy” or that we “belong”, can be overwhelmed, at least for a moment, if we allow the gift to land and embrace the challenge of bearing the pleasure of it.

The true power of gratitude comes with these shifts, and the opening of our emotions, and even our soul. To quote Toko-Pa again, we are “gentling the eyes to see life, and ourselves, with kindness”.

GO DEEP

When were you last touched by beauty, kindness, generosity, humanity at its best?

How was that experience?

What happened in your thinking, feeling, being as a result?

What did you tell yourself about yourself, others and the world at that moment?

What kind(s) of gratitude were stirred in you by this experience? How did you express that response?

GO WIDE

Breathe in the gift, pause and experience it “landing” inside you, breathe out the feelings that are released as it lands.

Know that this rhythm of breathing, receiving and releasing is healing some of those raw places, bruises and wounds. Stop if this begins to feel overwhelming. Find someone to process this with, either a close friend whom you trust to support you, or a counsellor or therapist who can help you understand and work with deeper feelings or old traumas that may surface as you do this practice.

Know that your worth is reflected back to you in the things you feel grateful for. The beautiful sunset, the birdsong, the smile and hug of your child, the wag of your dog’s tail, the softness of a scarf, the taste of butter dripping off a warm crumpet, the glass of water after a run. Your gratitude in response is affirming your place in life, in Nature, and with people. Your gratitude is an expression of your worth and your connection with the world. Where there is distress in the inner places that are touched as you receive and respond with gratitude, there is a longing for more. More receiving, more healing. More breathing yourself into life, and breathing life deeply into you.

Practice “gentling your eyes” and seeing yourself with kindness, softness, warmth and welcome – let your response to the song of a Wren be your response to the beauty and intricate genius of your own self, wounds, defences, warts and all. You may only be able to manage this for moments before that old internal critic kicks in again, but moments are important, and lead to bigger moments and more.

I’d love to hear how these blogs land with you. You can comment, or message me via Facebook or at barbara.physis@gmail.com.

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In the meantime, stay safe, enjoy whatever you can when you can, and survive the rest.