05/10/2021
Gratitude - Thankfulness - Appreciation
Living with gratitude is not always as easy as making a list of the good things. Good things are not too hard to list up, to appreciate, to think about; but sometimes, just before the good part is a hard part.
I was thinking about my list, my gratitude and I was feeling good... but then there was the wishing part. ..."if I could only", "if only", and so I fell out of gratitude into a funk.
Feeling funky when you start out to be thankful is not the place you wanted to end up. I asked myself why it is so easy to think that the "what if" or "if only" is the place to stop when really that moment before "if only" is worthy of gratitude.
If only I could flow from "downward dog" to "plank" to "crow" without falling on my face or my shoulder hurting so much I collapse.... and this started me feeling very frustrated because I had been working hard for months. Then I thought back a bit to the moment before. I was thankful to have the 30 minutes, the mat, the video, and enough strength and energy to start some yoga. There was a lot to be grateful for when I stopped before the "if only". I am not meaning to be trite.
I started to think more about gratitude in smaller steps. Yes the garden is beautiful and I appreciate the colours, the scents, the shapes, that there are so many different plants growing there. I appreciate that there is soil to cover the seed, that there is sun and rain to feed them to grow and this all happens because there is a moment (many moments) before. Someone chose seeds and put them in the soil, that there was some space for these seeds to be planted. There are so many things to be grateful about when we stop and think about the before "if only there were not so many weeds there".
We hear about the power of gratitude in our lives from so many sources - it
gives us strength, it balances our stresses, lowers our blood pressure.. and sometimes it feels really hard to be grateful because somethings are not right, not the best or just not good. Maybe we can pause and look at things just a bit earlier to see where we do have something to be thankful for, that there is some dirt, and some seed, and some rain, and some sun so there will be a garden growing very soon.
