This year I have been working on my gratitude practice. Sure, I would like to think I have always been a grateful person, or that I’m more grateful than the people I see around me, but then gauging yourself on how you see people around you is not a very accurate yardstick. As usual, it all comes back to being a better person today than I was yesterday. I find it interesting, that even though I make a consistent effort to be thankful and generally observant of the moods I experience and thoughts and attitudes I indulge in, the weight of doom and gloom seems to be what I return to.
I think it is human nature to automatically look for what could go wrong, especially if you’ve noticed these things forever and nobody ever takes you seriously but then when it goes pear-shaped as predicted, you are the one who must clean it all up or deal with it.
I have lost count of the number of times I thought “If they just listened to me/did what I said we wouldn’t be dealing with this right now!” which is actually funny to me because it is the controlling catch cry of well-meaning women everywhere!
The mentality that if somehow, I was listened to and obeyed, everything would be smooth sailing, I guess? This is pretty egocentric on one hand, but on the other hand, I feel it’s also about respect; the respect of your family to listen and understand that mom really does know best sometimes, especially seeing she is the one who coordinates and organizes and fixes and schedules everything and everyone in the house.
Well, that was the old me. I now realize that I know better, so I am doing my best to do better, it’s tough though. Our natural human baseline of “what is the worst thing that could happen here,” is a constant struggle.
But because I am never happy to sit by and watch myself perpetuate negative patterns and mindsets, I am continually striving to learn more, and change my habits and thought processes. It is so hard sometimes; all this personal development stuff is not set up for busy solo mothers that’s for sure. So I fit it in where ever I can, stay curious, be aware, and surround myself with like-minded people, (thank goodness for the internet.)
I’ve discovered that it really is true, gratitude is the thing that gives me the perspective that I was missing. Not just a random thank you here and there, but an actual practice I work diligently on, it is something that you must work on every minute of every day! I’ve learned that you cannot just be grateful for something in the morning and expect that to carry you through your whole day. It’s an actual process of consciously catching yourself throughout the day when those resentful/victim/why me/why this/why now thoughts creep in…I don’t know about you, but for me, it usually starts with questions: why can’t this happen? Why am I late again? Why is there an empty cereal box in the pantry? How come that’s suddenly so expensive? How come everything is always so hard? etc., etc.
Besides catching them, which was all I was doing for a while, I have moved on to reframing them, asking better questions, or at least just stopping them.
If nothing else, I must give thanks too because I know I am fortunate. I am healthy and so are my son and our pets, I have a job, my son goes to a good school, I enjoy personal freedom, and I have food to eat and a roof over my head. I even have my own car. When I remember that they are so many people who don’t have these things it’s a solid reality check for me. When my marriage was falling apart, it was remembering these facts that helped change my thought processes as I reminded myself that I was still lucky. My husband liked to party and seldom stuck to his word or came home. Sure, it was incredibly disappointing, but it could have been so much worse. We had previously had a great time together (15 years) but our time was done. Despite things not turning out the way I had expected, it was still a great time while it lasted.
Giving thanks and being grateful is by far one of the best ways to help yourself get perspective in a situation, I think it is often overlooked because it is so simple. There is no course you must buy, no guru to follow, it is as easy as taking a deep breath and saying Thank You for what you have, mentally, physically, and spiritually. And genuinely mean it. I can’t help but wonder, why isn’t this taught in school? Imagine how things would change if we were all taught to be grateful from a young age.
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