There’s the practice, and then there’s the “real” practice. There’s showing up, and then there’s putting in the work. It’s what makes the difference between easy and hard, comfortable and uncomfortable, safety and bravery, ignorance and defiance, lessons avoided and lessons learned. It’s what makes the difference between where you begin, where you are and where you are going.
Sometimes we have to start in the easy, stay in the easy and get comfortable in the easy to give ourselves the strength to dive into the mud. And when we dive, sometimes it’s not so much a dive as sticking a pinky toe in and pulling it right back out. One isn’t right and the other isn’t wrong. They’re just different, and different is OK. In understanding the spectrum of experience, we can navigate our healing in a way that doesn’t put each encounter into a category. There is no pass or fail, good or bad, right or wrong. When we let go of defining our experiences within boundaries, we find more space to let those experiences shape us in a way that benefits us and heals us without restriction.
The usual suspects
It is no different with gratitude. We can find gratitude in the usual suspects:
- The way the sunrise meets the horizon, so beautiful it is almost blinding
- A full moon on a clear night
- The way the earth smells after a summer rain
- Baby animals. Oh, baby animals
- Long weekends with our families
- The elbow and knee rolls of a new baby
- Meals made with love and ingredients picked with care
- Warm tea or coffee on the first cool morning
- Stories shared over late nights and early mornings
- Laughing until you’re crying
- Car rides and the perfect playlist
- Music that moves your body and your soul
- Art that stirs your heart
- A tribe that knows you, loves you and supports you
- The mother, the father, the nurturer, the beloved
Sometimes this is where we hold all of our gratitude, where we can find, see, taste and touch it. And that is OK. It is OK to find gratitude here, where the sun rises, the smiles smile back, the sounds are familiar and everything is known and understood.
Where the sun doesn’t shine
But what happens when we push the boundary of where we find gratitude? What happens when we look past the light and try to find gratitude in the dark? How can we find gratitude where the fear is rampant, where the sadness lives? How do we find gratitude when everything else is telling us to run, to shut down, to build a wall and turn away from the unfamiliar?
This part of the journey takes years, sometimes lifetimes. How do we begin to find appreciation in the face of someone or something so painful, so adverse to our own selves? For some of us, as soon as we are wronged we can forgive and find the lesson, the gratitude. For others, healing needs to happen first: space created, time passed, feelings understood, emotions buoying back and forth. Only then do we begin to see the very beginnings of gratitude.
It’s no wonder the practice of gratitude has such a close relationship to the practice of patience. We cannot force ourselves to see the light, because there are times when we are not ready. We cannot fake being thankful for being hurt while we are still licking our wounds. We cannot wish well to those who wish us pain before we regain the strength and resolve to get back up.
Only when you are ready
Find the time. Find the space, the outlet, the understanding, the way to the lesson. When you get there, look in the mirror and see the strength you have given yourself: the immense knowledge you now hold, the undying resolve, the fight, the warrior, the badass who made it through and is on the other side.
Then, maybe, if you are ready, and only if you are ready, you can begin to find a nod of gratitude. A thank you to the ones who got me here: the ones who pushed me and thought I would fall, the ones who did not believe I was worthy, the ones who rallied against me, the ones who would not take the time to heal, to find patience, to find gratitude. Because of them, I am scarred but stronger, changed but for the better, wiser and more ready than ever.
I find gratitude in that: in who I am, who I have become, and the journey that got me here.
