Gratitude. What does that mean to you? It is not a platitude of giving thanks at Thanksgiving, with the turkey and cranberries, or saying thanks for a lovely gift at least for me that is not gratitude. For me, it is an attitude of gratitude it is a practice of feeling grateful for all that we have, even in a pandemic, even during challenging times maybe especially during challenging times!
One place this lesson was shown to me was five years ago. My husband and I had miraculously survived what seemed like a fatal car crash, he broke his neck and I well survived! The next day as I went to get the personal effects from our totaled beloved RAV 4 at the junk lot, I was sobbing. The big burly, junk lot attendant, with a cigarette hanging out of his mouth wearing a lumberjack coat and long beard, approached me. ” Lady,” he said, “You are one of the lucky ones”! ” What the blazes are you talking about I said” My car is totaled, my husband has a broken neck and our life feels in shatters”. “Yes Mam,” he said through his cigarette,” You are lucky, every day I see families come here, they have lost their loved ones in car accidents, or they are brain dead or quads or way worse…..”
Well, I wanted to slap the guy, truth be told. I did not feel lucky, to say the least. And as his words sunk into my thick head, I felt something else. I understood what GRATITUDE feels like. My burly pal was 100 percent right. We were lucky, we were very lucky.
And so I learned at that moment and would practice it over and over again in the long months of rehab that my husband had, to be grateful, to hold it in my heart and my body so that I could feel it and know it.
And I now believe that Gratitude is the most important ingredient to being Resilient. To hold the blessings of your life, and of this moment close is how we live our best lives and that is how any challenge big or small helps us Stop Worrying and Start Living.
So try it on! Each day write down three things you are truly grateful for and watch your attitude of GRATITUDE grow.
Happy Thanksgiving
