Gratitude: How it Can Change Your Life

In the spirit of US Thanksgiving, I’ve been thinking about gratitude. I would hasten to say that as soon as you read that sentence, your eyes started to gloss over and you got ready for boredom to kick in. Yes, you’re grateful. You’re grateful for the roof over your head and the food in your fridge and that we live in a free country. Yes, you’re grateful you’ve got a job to go to or that you don’t have a job to go to. Based on the fact that it’s Thursday, you are very likely grateful that the week is almost over and you might get one morning over the weekend where you don’t have to rush out of bed. I get it. You don’t take your life for granted, so why is gratitude such a big deal? It’s like a buzzword in this day and age…like a cure-all. So WHAT is with all these people who claim gratitude transformed their existence?? You might even make a regular practice of writing down things you’re grateful for. So why haven’t you felt any major shifts??!!?!

I’m about to tell you!!

I’m here to tell you about gratitude from a different perspective… From MY perspective- based on how a gratitude practice transformed my existence.

You see, in the summer of 2014, I was experiencing a crisis. In my world, it was a crisis of epic proportions. I woke up with a stomach ache the day after father’s day. I have a touchy stomach, so no big deal. But I continued to wake up with a stomach ache every day for weeks. This little tummy ache triggered a fast spiral down to the depths of despair, anxiety, and depression for me. I was terrified for my life on the daily and my mind had convinced itself that I wouldn’t live to see my next birthday (that was two months away). And for all of you out there who also worry about your health… GET THE HELL OFF GOOGLE!!!!!

Long story short (I’ll share that one for another day- it’s a biggie), I saw my doctor. I had my hubby take me to the emergency room more than once. I got on meds. And I started seeing a counsellor (again). One of my conversations with my counsellor revolved around my fear of dying. I wanted to figure it out. I wanted to figure out why it was so prevalent for me and why I couldn’t live day-to-day life without being SO afraid.

The funny thing about counselling is they don’t tell you the answers to your questions. They are there to listen and ask you more questions, but at the end of the day, you have to figure out your own crap. I’d been through therapy before. I knew lots of tips and tricks and how to help calm myself through an anxious situation and I knew how to turn on a meditation app to help me fall asleep at night. I REALLY wanted to know what the trick was that was going to work for me this time and help me to deal with this intense fear that loomed over me 24/7.

So what did I do? What every good person does who can’t come up with their own damn answers. I googled!! Ha! Cue the words “How to deal with fear of dying” in the search bar. Article after article came up and there was a common thread. Everyone was telling me to live in the now, to live each day to its fullest, and my favourite, to “be present”. I distinctly remember thinking, that’s all fine and dandy, but what does that shit ACTUALLY MEAN?!?! How do you DOOOOOO those things?!?! It all seemed so elusive. I would guess I’m not the only person who has felt that way. I felt like I needed an instruction manual but I didn’t know how to find it. I kept scrolling. I came across a no-name blog by an ex-military officer who was writing about his experience with PTSD and all of the sudden my answer was right in front of my eyes. He spoke of gratitude as a way to bring our minds back into the present and as a way to train our brains to live in the NOW as opposed to wallowing in the “what if’s” of the future. I don’t remember his exact words, and I really wish I would have written down the link or his name or SOMETHNG, but on that day, during that time of my life, I was in survival mode and something clicked. I knew I needed to start a gratitude practice, but I knew I needed to approach it differently than I ever have before. What I started doing changed everything for me.

What I came up with was that if I needed to re-train my brain to live in the NOW, I needed to be thankful for the now. I needed to start noticing every little thing in every minute and be thankful for those experiences. Starting this new “practice” was a little scary. And it required effort for sure. It also brought a lot of feelings to the surface, because in really acknowledging the moments of each day, I was also facing my paralyzing fear that my days would be stolen from me somehow. I started to be thankful for the way the cool sheets felt when I crawled into bed at night. I started to be thankful for the way the warm dishwater felt on my hands when I was doing dishes and how amazing it felt to stand in the coop and visit with someone I hadn’t seen in too long. I also started to acknowledge after each experience that if I suddenly had no more tomorrows, that I was so very grateful I had just experienced that moment. I can’t even tell you the exact moment my thought patterns started to shift on their own, but they did. I was able to bring myself back to the now and slowly, the fears started to lessen. When I felt fear and worry start to creep in, I would consciously take a minute to feel where I was. I would notice the sunshine on my face or the taste of my coffee or how what my two year old just said made me belly laugh. Then I would immediately remind myself how thankful I was to have just had that ONE. SINGLE. MOMENT. It was pure bliss for just one moment. And you know what they say about moments- that they make up the days that make up our lives.

So today, the day after our friends in the USA celebrated Thanksgiving and as we kick off the Christmas season, I’d like you to really think about gratitude and what it means to you. If you already have a gratitude practice, I’d love to hear about it. Maybe a shift in perspective can help you to get even more out of what you’re already doing. If you’ve never made a practice of gratitude, I encourage you to consider it! It doesn’t have to be the formal making of a list, but you might find the physical act of writing helps you get into the zone. If you’re not feeing the urge to write, then I hope you can take a few minutes throughout your day to truly feel into some of the moments that make up your life and appreciate them and appreciate the chance to experience them.

Love, Elsa.