On gratitude

Full disclosure: last week I experienced a spiritual relapse. I hit rock bottom. I won't  labour over all the torturous details, suffice  to say it was awful. By now I have become accustomed to  this drill and  so, begrudgingly, I knew exactly what I had to do.  Knowing is one thing though. What did I actually do? I went to the fridge to look for a tiny easter egg  which I vaguely remembered had fallen somewhere behind the shelves about two months ago. There was no chocolate ANYWHERE,  and I  was so very desperate. So I probably spent 15 minutes  doing that (I found it!). But THEN what did I  do? I bathed in my pain and  let it wash over me until, eventually, there was nothing  left for it but to pack  its little knapsack of sorrow and move on. It was painful but necessary.

This post, however,  is not an exercise in ego. It's about gratitude. My relapse nevertheless serves as an important reminder that one cannot attempt to deny or discount any negative feelings  in an effort to remedy  pain. The condensed version of my three step program: 1. Shit happens 2. Sit with (sh) it fully 3. Practice gratitude to realign.  Wham bam thank you Sham.

Once you have allowed the space for your emotions, you will find that they dissipate or transmute into something manageable. Either way, you are free to move onto step 3 - practising gratitude! Expressing gratitude, both verbally or in written form, is such a powerful spiritual practice. Authentic appreciation of yourself and everything around you leads to a serious recaliberation of energy and helps you to align with your most powerful and true self. Simply put, it just feels better.

So, to get in the mood,  I decided to leisurely browse through my Gratitude Journals of yesteryear  and re-read all the wonderful things I have been grateful for in the past. My findings?  Well, 2012 was  apparently the Year of the Bok Choy  for me, as my Gratitude Journal  makes several mentions of this green leafy vegetable, each time with alarming gusto.

As you can see above, I was not content with one "Yummy" and  thus was compelled to add another "Yum!"  immediately after.  One could legitimately ask whether  I  was on acid when I wrote this, or whether I was in fact an asian grandma, and on both accounts I would have to answer no.  How one can even work themselves up to get so jazzed about "greens" is a little concerning, but I guess that's  the point of these exercises. You have to find something, ANYTHING that brought you joy during the day, however simple they may be. Other things I was grateful for  on 28 March 2012 included being bothered to shave my legs (what the?) and having a clean room. 2012, it seems, was a rough year.