Tag: practice gratitude

Flip the Negatives Around and Celebrate the Positives!

Today, I am choosing to celebrate the positives! The method I will use is practicing gratitude. Admittedly, I don’t feel like doing this or feel very grateful so I’m using force of will to get started, but I know the process will shift my focus and I’ll soon embrace the better feelings it will create.

In spite of the amount of body work I’ve done, past trauma leaves me bracing for the worst much of the time. I can feel myself holding feelings back with my steeled posture. If I don’t let negative feelings flow and release them, I can’t feel positive feelings.

The process of practicing gratitude can work for me as a way to slowly and carefully access feelings I’m not sure I want to feel or that I am subconsciously avoiding. I know it’s not touted as a technique designed for that, but I like to use it in this manner because it accomplishes a couple of things simultaneously.

With a structure for getting to the emotions beneath the surface, I don’t feel anxious or frantic. It’s like walking up a gentle slope to the top of the mountain rather than free-soloing the face of a cliff. The other thing that happens is, by the time I reach them, bad feelings are diminished or cushioned by the positive framework of gratitude I’ve created to support me. There’s a real beauty in the way this works.
positives
Here’s today’s process:

I am grateful the rain has stopped. My roof is leaking. I filed an insurance claim two weeks ago, but due to a delay by my agent and then another by the insuring company, an adjuster won’t show up until tomorrow. During those two weeks, wind gusts carried away a whole section of shingles and yesterday it began to rain.

I am grateful that the roof leak is small. The pitch of my roof is very steep so most of the water runs right off. I’ve been able to catch the drips that make it inside in a plastic tub lined with towels.

I am grateful I woke up early. Instead of trying to convince myself to go back to sleep, I made my way downstairs to discover the sound of running water. I followed my ears to the closet that contains my water heater. A pipe is leaking. Water was just beginning to pool. If I had waited until my alarm sounded, I would have had a flooded floor. Instead, I’ll just have a cold shower.

I am grateful I finally found an engineer who may be able to help with the flooding of my office building. The first 12 years I owned that building, the French drain was adequate. Now it floods often. The experts have determined the drain is clear and adding another would not help. What they haven’t determined is what will help. I’m hopeful that this new engineer will have the magic potion.

There seems to be a water theme here. How can that come as a surprise? When it rains, it pours, right? But wait, there’s more! That’s good because I’m not really feeling better yet.

I am grateful I haven’t contracted the stomach virus my son’s family is passing around. Even if I eventually get it, I appreciate the fact that I am not fighting floods while fighting a virus.

I am grateful I have power at my house. Thousands in my state do not because of the storms.

I’m grateful for all of those reusable grocery bags I found cleaning out the water heater closet. I didn’t realize I had so many size options.

I’m grateful I don’t have to do the dishes for a few hours. I tested some recipes and have a few pans that have to be hand washed. I don’t love that task so taking it off the list for awhile makes me happy.

Awww, a glimpse of feeling good!

I’m grateful I tested those recipes because that means there’s food in the refrigerator. I don’t have to think about what I’m going to eat today. All I have to do is reach, reheat, eat!

This makes me feel more secure. Yeah, my association of food availability and a feeling of security is a long story for another day. Suffice it to say I’m painfully aware of the connection.

Now I’ve reached the point where things get real. I still feel sad about the experiences that created that connection. The underlying feeling is grief.

That old grief is not all I feel. I have a load of grief and loss from current events as well. Finding the time and space to process it fully and still meet my obligations is a difficult balancing act. Especially when there are floods to clean up.

So, I’m grateful to understand that I am carrying grief. This is good information because grief often manifests as anxiety which I feel as a pain in my stomach. Knowing the difference allows me to heal my stomach, my spirit, and my psyche.

I’m not alone in experiencing grief as anxiety. Some also experience it as depression or sleep problems. Max Strom has a whole Ted Talk on breathing & healing in which he states that a vast number of us have a grief problem masquerading as anxiety or panic.

When I can reach the feeling of grief that is lurking, I also immediately feel more grounded, centered, and calm. The “bad” brings with it the good. I am no longer willfully focussing on positive. It just appears in my awareness.

That allows me to relax the steeled posture I previously described. I can focus on my breath rather than holding it. This is a great beginning point!

There is much to process. In the moment, grief can feel like slogging in mud with unexpected waves of water suddenly crashing against you. But looking back, I quickly recognize that feeling grief does not crush me. It frees me.

I believe that eventually I will be free enough to revel in joy and I am grateful to be on that path.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4Lb5L-VEm34

https://maxstrom.com/

http://www.cooking2thrive.com/blog/im-going-let-thanksgiving-kickoff-new-year-filled-gratitude/

http://www.cooking2thrive.com/blog/gratitude-is-my-best-defense/

http://www.cooking2thrive.com/blog/preparation-for-healing-managing-expectations-begins-with-setting-clear-intentions/


Disclosure of Material Connection: I have not received any compensation for writing this post. I have no material connection to the brands, products, or services that I have mentioned. I am disclosing this in accordance with the Federal Trade Commission’s 16 CFR, Part 255: “Guides Concerning the Use of Endorsements and Testimonials in Advertising.”

Feeling Deprived? Try This.

Sometimes we just can’t help it. Everyone around us is munching on cake or cookies or our favorite panini. We can’t have those things. We feel deprived.

I can remember standing in the middle of the cracker aisle of a rural grocery store pouting because I just wanted a cracker to eat with some cheese. I’m sure everyone in the store could see my turned down lip. Now this might have been cute if I had been 3. I was 46. But at that moment, I just couldn’t help it.

There was no amount of intellectual reasoning that could counteract this feeling. I managed to hold it together and leave the crackers on the shelf, but that didn’t make me feel any better in that moment. In fact, if I were guessing, I’d guess I moved out of feeling deprived by feeling angry. This was my default for pulling myself out of a funk – fight. But who wants to fight all the time? It just makes you tired.

So how could I counteract feeling deprived without getting fighting mad? 

The answer is simple although my path to discovering it has been circuitous and lengthy. Practice gratitude.

Practicing gratitude is slightly different from feeling grateful. It is deliberate act. In fact, when you begin, you may not feel grateful at all. When I decided to try this practice, my goal was to write down 5 things for which I was grateful each morning. I still felt angry. My list might look like: 1)The sun shining through the window. 2)I remembered to water the plants so they aren’t dead. 3)I have clean underwear in my drawer. 4)My bright colored boots. 5)That my stupid car is still running even though it’s old and dirty and I’d rather have a new one.

Boots

Some days I would sit for 15 or 20 minutes trying to come up with five things. Eventually, I learned that I could be sincerely grateful for those things about which I felt angry, annoyed, sad, or afraid. My lists began to include things like: 1)I had a chance to eat yogurt for breakfast because it always makes my tummy feel better than eating a GF bagel. 2)My friend didn’t call as promised because this gives me a chance to recognize that I feel afraid when someone is undependable. I know this is a chance to heal and grow. 3)My air conditioner failed because even though it may be a struggle to pay for a replacement, it allowed me to discover the water leak that was feeding toxic mold. 4)My heart feels broken by the loss of a loved one because it means my heart is intact, and I am able to bond. 5)I noticed the gorgeous sunrise this morning when I had to get up early.

Then, another shift took place. I learned that any time I am feeling vulnerable, inadequate, scared, angry, or deprived an immediate verbal recitation of gratitude anchors me so that I can show up in the moment. Sometimes I recite these lists in my head. I say them rapid fire and they look like: The budding green trees, that gorgeous tulip I see outside, it’s cool in the room, I remembered the sample for this meeting, my clothes feel like pjs, this is my only meeting today, this coffee is good, I can go home early.

As your practice grows, you may begin to feel unanticipated emotions emerging related to your lists. When you think about it, this makes sense. After all, as you rumble around your internal being searching for gratitude, you’re creating a connection to your core. Continuing the practice strengthens that connection and declutters the pathway to embracing your personal power. For some of us, this is a bumpy road that can feel like slogging through mud, then sliding easily followed by a need to serpentine through a minefield. The good news is that gratitude supports an openness that allows us to recognize, embrace, and full receive encouragement, affection, assistance, and love along the way. Over time, this results in a more full life with deeper connections and the courage to receive an abundance of love. In such an environment, feeling deprived can’t last long!

Do you practice gratitude? How does it help you?