Being Thankful For What You Are NOT Really Thankful For
I had gotten out of the habit of saying Grace before mealtime. I missed that pause of reflection and be thankful for all that we have. So, I started saying “Grace” over my dog’s food. It gave me that ritual of pause, reflection and letting the feeling of gratitude emerge. (It was also good impulse training for my dog.) It was a ritual we both anticipated and enjoyed.
Recently, as I began saying “Grace” over my dog’s food, listing the things I was thankful for, I began to realize there was a growing number of things I was NOT thankful for. Losses in my life, irritating people, or irritations among people I loved and cared for. Let’s face it I was in a bit of a funk. However, I felt there was a gem of truth to be found. I searched deeper. Was there something good to be gained by being thankful for what I was not thankful? So, I started saying I was thankful but not really feeling very thankful (and I am sure my dog could tell the difference).
With positive situations, it is easy to fan the flames of thankfulness. Yet to look at the more negative aspects of our life and feel thankful seemed like a stretch. Was it just Pollyanna thinking? Simply a silver lining exercise?
However, the bigger question emerged, can we feel discouragement, anger, sadness and frustrated about something AND be thankful? Could I draw up that emotion from within myself? Or did I need to get rid of discouragement, anger, sadness and frustration first – and if so – that wasn’t going to work for me.
I had learned the “two-handed method” from my EMDR supervisor Robin Shapiro. You take two aspects of a situation and place them in opposing hands and with eye movement process them. I used a modified version for this experiment. Taking the situation into my heart, in one hand I held all of the negative thoughts and emotions. I held them gently and just noticed them as if in meditation. Then I took my other hand and asked “What about this situation am I thankful for?” The hand with the negative energy was so heavy and the thankful hand was so light - and empty. I waited and nothing happened. I decided to ask the question differently. “Because of this situation I am thankful that…” and I waited...and waited.
Suddenly my mind shifted as I started to look for sparks of gold rather than the black coal of negativity. Small ideas came to mind and yes, I was thankful for that. Other ideas appeared, a few at a time. Seemingly inconsequential at first, these ideas soon formed a pattern about what I was truly thankful for. This thankfulness stance then began morphing into gratitude for my life. The thankful hand remained lighter but soon became the hand I enjoyed focusing on. The thankful hand had so much more to offer me. The emotions were more enjoyable. Suddenly hope emerged and broke into plans to create something new out of the situation. While I did not completely ignore the negative hand, it had dropped to my side as it became less and less useful for my life.
Thankfulness is a response to something that happens in your life, present or past. Gratitude is a more profound emotion that comes from reflecting on the many things in your life that you are thankful for. Thankfulness and gratitude are higher frequency vibrations, more hopeful and contribute to creativity and imagination that can soon formulate something new – a more useable situation. Now when you are in a funk you may have to do this 50 times a day. But you get the idea – thankfulness and gratitude are useful in our lives, creating solutions for our higher design of life.
Workshop coming in October 10th at 11:00 AM - 1:00 PM on Letting Go: A Transitional Necessity to Change