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3 Ways to Step into Gratitude

There’s a very old Hebrew Psalm that’s been circling in my mind lately. It’s an ancient prayer that is definitely not filled with praise or thanksgiving, instead, lament:

By the rivers of Babylon we sat and wept
when we remembered Zion.
There on the poplars
we hung our harps,
for there our captors asked us for songs,
our tormentors demanded songs of joy;
they said, “Sing us one of the songs of Zion!” 
(from Psalm 137)

In other words: How are we to be grateful or express thanksgiving when it is demanded of us? Or, maybe even more true, when we demand it of ourselves?

The list is long of things that can make gratitude feel arduous and disingenuous:

  • Racism, sexism, ableism, capitalism, colonialism, consumerism — an endless list of “isms.”
  • Family dynamics so tense that silence feels like your wisest choice — but also the most frustrating one.
  • Fears about money.
  • Fears about global warming.
  • A growing awareness about the ways in which the subconscious belief that you are “too much” is impacting, well, pretty much everything.
  • A resurfaced, painful memory from your childhood that keeps playing itself like a tape in your head, endlessly looping.
  • Hard parenting moments (if not full-on seasons, even years).
  • Political strife.
  • Uh, a pandemic!
  • Too many unspoken thoughts and feelings in your most important relationship(s).
  • A general feeling of anxiety and lostness; an internal swirling/churning that doesn’t seem to let up no matter what you try and frankly, doesn’t make a bit of sense to you.
  • Feeling like your life is in parts and pieces — disjointed, disparate, unhooked.
  • No matter how big, even loving, the group of people is, you still feel alone.

I could go on.

Asking the Hebrew people to sing songs when in captivity? You trying to feel grateful with this list? Impossible. Ridiculous. Unreasonable. Beyond capacity.

You feel the pressure to express, even feel gratitude when really, somedays, the best you can do is get out of bed.

To pretend like all of these things (and so many more) don’t actually exist — or to sweep them into some dusty corner for the day — so that you can smile and say the right things and feign gratitude is exhausting.

Feigned gratitude is also nearly-always demanded of us. Especially as women.

  • Just keep smiling (like Dori in Finding Nemo — “just keep swimming…”)
  • Make sure things are OK for everyone else.
  • Don’t upset the apple cart.
  • Keep your feelings to yourself.
  • Don’t complain.
  • And be grateful, will you? After all, things could be worse!

This last bullet point is a very slippery slope. I hear it often from clients (and even within myself at times). “Who am I to complain, compared to the problems that other people have?” “I hate to even talk about this; it feels so insignificant in the scheme of things.” “Really, I’m lucky; I’ve no right to not be grateful.”

Here’s the thing: all of those things can be true, may be true, but so are your struggles, your fears, your anxieties,  your family dynamics, your challenges, and your exhaustion!

You are not all good or all bad, all happy or all sad, all grateful or completely ungrateful. You are a complex and amazing woman who holds a multitude of realities and emotions and experiences and roles and responsibilities and heartbreaks and hopes — all at the same time!

This, my friend, is where gratitude can at least begin: acknowledge just how vast and deep all of you actually is — not only the “acceptable” parts but also (and maybe even more) those parts that you have the tendency to sweep into those dusty corners.

Gratitude has to be, gets to be, inclusive: the hard stuff as well as the beautiful, the ache as well as the celebration, the failure as well as the success, the loneliness as well as the love, the reality as well as the hope.

I hate to be too reductionist, but here’s what I believe:

Acknowledging what is true is gratitude.

Honestly name the reality of who you are,
and what you feel,
and all that you experience,
and all that makes you crazy,
and all that you wish you could change,
and every single thing you wish for, hope for, desire, and deserve.

That list? Those things? All of them? They are you!

When I consider youAll of you? Well, all I feel is grateful. Yes — you are conflicted and confused and complicated. Yes — you are generous and genuine and gracious. Yes — you get angry and frustrated and irritable. Yes — you feel afraid and worried and anxious. Yes — you are trusting and optimistic and willing to try yet again. Amazing!

The ability to take in, see, hold, and honor all of you is what generates gratitude. Acknowledging what is true. Not forced. Not demanded. And maybe even somewhat unexpected. It’s grace, really.

*****

So, 3 ways to step more deeply into gratitude?

  1. Acknowledge the complexity and beauty and conflictedness of all of you. Then you can better allow the same in others.
  2. Allow the pain of the world and its beauty. Then you can feel into just how deep and vast and infinite your emotions truly are. (One of them might just be gratitude.) YOU are that deep and vast and infinite!
  3. Begin to name the parts of you that you’ve worked so hard to overcome or at least keep hidden. Yes, it can feel overwhelming and scary; but it is the very thing that invites you to step into a story (and life) that is honest and expansive and true and real and raw and vulnerable and tender and fierce. And that? Mmmm. Definitely gratitude!

It is true: there is MUCH that gives us cause to be ungrateful — as it should! Endless internal and external messages that deny our value and worth. Patriarchy. Objectification. Sexual trafficking. Domestic violence. Pay and leadership inequity. Misogyny. The list is l o n g.

But this is also true: in the midst of all this, still, YOU are you!

Mysteriously, amazingly, serendipitously, incomprehensibly — you survive, your story endures, your wisdom persists, your heart loves.

I don’t know how else to respond, but to say thank you.

I’m hopeful that you can say the same — to yourself and for yourself, in grateful response to all of who you are — even now, even still, in the midst.

May it be so.

*****

Every week I write a letter to my subscribers. There’s no skimming the surface; instead, it’s filled with truth-telling and diving deep. I’d love for you to have it. And I’d be super-grateful. Every Monday morning — your inbox — from my heart to yours. SUBSCRIBE.

Telling Myself (no more) Lies

I have recently uncovered an interesting belief I hold within. It’s not pleasant. And frankly, I’m not all that crazy about admitting it. But it needs to be exposed.

My truth always equals pain.

My story, my memory, is littered with scenes in which I finally stepped into integrity, let the consequences be damned, took the risks, and told the truth. In my marriage, at my job, in relationships. Consequences did ensue – just like I knew they would. In those particular situations, when I stood up for myself, let the words come out of my mouth, and expressed
how I really felt, all hell broke loose.

Just because something is true, doesn’t mean it is a truth to live by.

I’ve extrapolated those experiences (along with many others) into an anticipation that this will always happen, that this does always happen. And that anticipation has become a belief.

Poured in concrete. Set in stone. Won’t budge. Without knowing it, I’ve constructed a hard- and-fast tenet by which I now live. It has impacted my past, to be sure; but more, my present and future. I don’t like it, but I recognize it and I actually believe it: my truth always equals pain.

It is a lie.

This is true: Much of what I say and do is helpful, expansive, and healing. I intentionally and passionately offer hope, encouragement, and strength. I know this. I believe this. You can’t convince me otherwise.

But here’s the bind: Even though I know that my truth does not always equal pain, I act like it does. I make choices, measure risks, and determine actions based on a false belief.

Let me give you just the slightest (and scary) taste of the insipid voice in my head:

If you were really telling the truth – in your writing, in your work, in conversation and relationship, it would be too painful. Pain isn’t good when you inflict it on others – only yourself! No one would want to be around you. No one would want to hear what you have to say. You’d be alone. You are too much. Better to tone it down, hold back, rewrite, rewind, retreat. Better to not tell the truth, at least not all of it. See? Your truth equals pain.

And if that voice doesn’t work, then this one chimes in:

Are you crazy? It’s irrevocable: “your truth always equals pain!” You must hold on to the pain! Pain is good! Think about it: a blog post should be excruciating to write, a meaningful relationship should include suffering, struggles with money are a sign of strength, trying to understand God should be nearly impossible. And the book? Oh, that most-definitely should be hell-on-earth. See how hard all of this is? That means it’s worthwhile, that you are. Well done!

You can hear the insanity, yes?

Many of the stories we tell ourselves need to be exposed for the lies they are. And the best way to do that is to actually tell them, name them, expose them (often out loud and to another person) in order to hear the (false) beliefs and ties that bind.

Even more:

We need to write-speak-believe-live new stories that corroborate what’s actually true.

So here’s the new story I’m telling myself:

My truth does not equal pain. Ease, rest, creativity, and flow are my birthright. And the crazy voices are just that. I get to listen to and trust the know-that-I-know-that-I-know voice within. It is glorious, wise, worthy, and telling the truth. As am I.

How about you?

May it be so.

On a Wire

Early in the morning I sat on the couch, my laptop awaiting the click-click-click of my brain and its compliant fingers. Steaming coffee. Vast silence. Cloudy skies. Heavy heart.

I looked out the window and saw six tiny birds sitting on a wire.

I thought about easy it is for them to sit there, perched and pretty, barely hanging on, not a care in the world.

I thought about how when they let go, they soar. How the wind buoys them up into the heavens.

I thought about how hard it is for me to sit still. How I feel like I’m barely hanging on. How I carry the weight of the world on my shoulders.

I thought that were I to really-completely-totally let go, I would undoubtedly crash. How the wind feels brutal and even violent. How flying and any sense of the heavens feels distant, impossible, and as certain-foolish-hope.

Then I just felt. Lots.

And then I thought that maybe that’s why those six birds sat there: waiting for me to think thoughts and then think new ones and then feel – lots and then trust and then Just.Let.Go.

Think. Feel – lots. Trust. Just.Let.Go. And believe that to soar is the only possible result.

Got it.

And just then, in that moment, the birds flew away and the sun broke through the clouds. God’s honest truth.