My challenge with my gratitude practice

Dear Friends,

I’ve been a fan of gratitude lists and the practice of gratitude for a while. There are so many benefits of gratitude which you can read about from Web MD here or Plum Village here .

I recently realized that one of the places I am challenged is in feeling and expressing gratitude for other humans. I can easily feel gratitude for my safe warm home, my two cuddly dogs, or the beautiful zinnias blooming in my yard. And I can even find gratitude for folks who are distant from me or passed away, like my grandma or Thich Nhat Hanh.

More challenging is to feel gratitude for the people who I see or talk to on a regular basis. The people I take for granted. In fact, I can feel annoyed by people because they aren’t living up to my expectations, often noticing what they don’t do instead of what they do.

Thich Nhat Hanh often spoke about shifting our neutral or negative feelings of numbness, blasé, and irritation into positive feelings by noticing that this moment is already wonderful, “Present Moment, Wonderful Moment.” I am practicing shifting my neutral or negative feelings about other people into positive ones by noticing what they are already doing.

For example, when I go to the doctor, I can choose to be sorry for myself that I need to get checked for cancer every three months, or I can choose to notice that the receptionist is there - often smiling - and ready to check me in. She made a choice to be there to support the office that day. And the nurse practitioners, nurses, and doctors, spent years of their lives studying this subject and are now offering me the fruits of their wisdom in order to help keep me well. None of them have to do this. They have chosen to give me this gift. Yes, they get paid, but they could have chosen to do something else or to withhold their knowledge.  When I think of it that way, I feel much more serene and happy as I am having my exam.

It’s the same with folks I work with. Nearly everyone I work with is a volunteer, so they certainly aren’t there to pay their bills. They have chosen to put time into this endeavor and even when I don’t agree with how they have done something, I have to admit that they have given a gift to our project just by showing up, just by sending that email or making that call. 

I don’t do this practice in order to make anyone else feel better. I do it because it makes my life so much better to keep putting my mind back onto the gifts and generosity of others. When I focus only on what needs of mine are not being met by other people, I can get pretty down. But when I remind myself regularly of what gifts are being offered, I can let go of petty annoyances and also know how to deal with issues with more compassion.

Just a thought for you today. I’d love to hear your reflections on this topic so feel free to email me with your thoughts!