I loathe self-help books, I don’t like to be told how to feel and process things – especially by people who don’t know me or what I have been through. I don’t believe in many alternative “new-age” ways of thinking, mainly because I fiercely believe in science and I am not the kind of person who can gaze at my naval and contemplate. In fact I can’t do anything that involves concentrating on breathing because as soon as I even think of the in and out mechanism of breathing I forget how to do it. You don’t want to sit near me in a yoga class when they do breathing exercises – I will trample you in my hurry to leave.
Being told that I can manifest good things if I just think positively is one of the worst things you can say to me – I wonder if people who say that to me would say the same words to a child born and living in a rubbish dump in India. Or to a child suffering from a terminal disease. Or to a family fleeing the war in Syria. I could go on for days. Ridiculously bad things happen to extremely good people and extravagantly good things happen to hideously bad people. Life can be awful and wonderful and it’s very, very random.
But I do believe in gratitude and expressing it. Just as I believe in thinking about things to bring them in to focus rather than to manifest them…
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Do you keep a gratitude journal? What are YOU grateful for today?
I’m grateful to be in this blogging community where I’m starting to build lovely friendships with amazing people.
And I KNOW what a massive wank that sounds like, but it’s true! It’s so nice to feel welcomed and respected. I’ve worked in the media for a while and I’m so used to being treated like insignificant dirt…. This is a really unexpected and wonderful change.
I am a big fan of gratitude, for the exact reason you said Lana, it changes your outlook on your day when you are actively looking for good things to note down at night time. For a few weeks I forced my brother to send me a text message every day with what he was grateful for (and I sent one to him) and I found I was walking around thinking “I’m grateful for this” all day long, trying to come up with the best thing to be grateful for. That does amazing things to your mood. Even on really shitty days I’d spend the whole time searching for the good.
I LOVE the idea of texting your brother every day! And you know, as wanky as it “may” sound the blogging community is pretty awesome – it’s supportive and kind and welcoming and I am so happy that you are part of it xxxx
Sorry I didn’t hear a word of that…. I was watching Henry sleep in the background 🙂 🙂 🙂
Lana, you know we had a horrendous start to our week. But I am grateful for the years I had with my beautiful Spaniel. Every day, every photo, every memory of her is a gift. And I am grateful that you wrote about her yesterday, and I saw people who I don’t even know offer their condolences and comment on what a beautiful dog she is. My own Facebook page was flooded with friends saying how sad they were that she was gone.
Gratitude is important. I do practise it every day. It makes you look for the little things in life that really are significant. and Ps I adore your accent 🙂
Benita xxx
Thanks Benita
I genuinely feel grateful not only to have met you, but in some way to have known your amazing Spaniel xxx
I used to arc up a bit about all that ‘I’m grateful ‘malarkey too, but I have to admit, it’s not a bad strategy to get yourself out of the doldrums. Granted, it probably won’t work for some real black dog stuff, but it has put things in perspective when you just find yourself having a general daily whinge. If you’re not careful, you can end up a grumpy old lady and miss out on a whole lot of grateful.
p.s. I’m very grateful I have my own version of a Henry (Sydney) on the couch. Makes up for the ungrateful humans in the house.
100% agree with you on the grateful thing not being able to lift you out of a real depression and as I mentioned on Kerri’s blog (I think or was it her Facebook page?) I think it’s a tool for looking for the good but when I have been really depressed or anxious I think I have felt angry with myself that I do have so much to be grateful for but still I am depressed. It’s not an anti-depressant but it’s a great leveller on a “normal” day. But dogs – dogs are always good xxx
I wrote this week about a school motto I spied while driving, “Imagine Believe Achieve” cos I thought what a crock! No mention of hard work, and as you say if you told a third world kid that this mantra was their ticket out of misery, and you didn’t duck right away, then you more than likely would be wearing something smelly on your head.
Black dog days blind me to gratitude but other times I am embarrassingly aware of just how lucky I am.
Great comment – Thanks Sue xx
I agree, I think that in a lot of ways some of these mantra’s really disenfranchise people. They don’t acknowledge effort and struggle, and there is no space in them for those situations when the universe really did just $#!^ on you. I’ve got one of ‘those books’ someone gave me about not being tied down and running off and exploring the world and throwing off the capitalist lifestyle etc… only for the majority of my life I’ve been someone’s primary care giver.
When I was sitting in the dark rubbing my grandmothers back as she vomited blood into a bucket, the idea of throwing it all off and ducking out to Fiji might have been really attractive, but I would never have been able to live with myself afterwards, so where did that leave me in the sea of platitudes? Yes, at any given time you can in fact throw off all your responsibilities and run off into the wilds, and you might well LOVE it, but I’m sorry, I’m not impressed. Nurses and Doctors impress me, people doing missionary work in horrendous conditions impress me, and ordinary people who are wading through painful stuff every day and just keep going, they impress me. Those are books I’ll buy and read.
Good post!