50 Shades of Gra(y)titude

Fifty days before my fiftieth birthday, I made a decision. Instead of creating a bucket list of dreams, goals, or achievements, I decided to focus on practicing gratitude for what is already present in my life. What I found was that gratitude is more than simply giving thanks. It is nuanced (at least fifty shades!), and like any practice that encourages me to slow down and pay attention, it can be transformational

Grapplings from my journal: A war, genocide, terrorism, and terrible injustices rage on in places far away from me. I am thankful for my warm house, my children, the abundance of food in our home, and to be able to sleep in peace, knowing we are safe and secure. It is hard to be thankful for what I have, when I am so aware of other’s suffering. 

My body is healthy and strong. I bike, walk, hike, work out, dance, and kayak. I do not experience chronic pain or a debilitating illness. I can move where I want and when I want to without limitation. I am grateful for this in my life, but feel bad if this is not the same for everyone but then is this just my internalized ableism?

I’m thankful for a gift I received from a friend twenty years ago. Despite many years of friendship, I am reminded of the crack that has developed recently in this relationship. I’m not certain it will mend, and it feels painful and complicated, and I feel powerless to fix it.

I wake up with a tired body, dread in my heart, and in my mind: a litany of complaints. “What am I grateful for today?” feels like a mountain to climb, when all I want is a hot shower. I look around to find something, anything to be grateful for: a warm drink, a comfortable seat, a nice pen. I know there’s gratitude in every moment, but some days it’s hard to find.

After fifty days I’ve noticed that gratitude doesn’t need me to be positive, but I do need to be present. It doesn’t require that I get it right every time, but it does require me to be aware. It asks me to look at my own life, and it invites me to consider others. Gratitude doesn’t compel me to be grateful for everything, but in everything, I can find something to be thankful for.

Gratitude is an emotion and more than an emotion; it is an ethic. It is easy at times and feels impossible at other times. It might be an attitude or choice, but also can be spontaneous, effervescent, and surprising. Gratitude can shift a perspective (everything in the world seems terrible, but phew this cup of tea is so good), and sometimes gratitude requires a shift in perspective to be able to find it (the annoying pile of dirty shoes at the front door means health and life in my teens for which I am thankful). Gratitude doesn’t fix pain, suffering, or injustice, but it can be the only source of light in a time of great darkness.

Gratitude offers a withness and invites me to bear witness. 

David Steindl-Rast, a Benedictine monk, suggests that "99% of the time we have an opportunity to be grateful, we just don't notice it." The ‘grandfather of gratitude’ lives every moment as though it is a gift and sees gratefulness as the "gentle power" toward personal happiness and collective well-being. He says, “Because if you’re grateful, you’re not fearful, and if you’re not fearful, you’re not violent. If you’re grateful, you act out of a sense of enough and not of a sense of scarcity, and you are willing to share. If you are grateful, you are enjoying the differences between people, and you are respectful to everybody, and that changes this power pyramid under which we live”. (Want to be happy? Be grateful., TEDGlobal 2013)

Ultimately, what I have, and what I am, and that I am anything at all, is a gift. This is at the heart of a practice of gratitude. Living in gratitude means we are all recipients and we all can be generous. Diana Butler-Bass in her book, “Grateful: The Transformative Power of Giving Thanks” concludes, “Gratitude empowers us. It makes love and joy possible. It rearranges the way we see and experience what is all around us. It transforms how we understand what is broken and gives us the ability to act more joyfully and with hope.”

I think it’s time for another fifty days.