Love Letters to My Life #38: Choosing Gratitude Resilience

(We know the day we were born, but most of us do not know the day we will die. This love letter to my life is written on the day I've designated as my death day: the 17th of every month, and reminds me to be grateful for my incredible life.)

Some images sear themselves into our consciousness: the Twin Towers collapsing, the young girl running down a road in Vietnam after a napalm attack, the picture of a struggling mother during the Great Depression. For me, another one has been added to that gallery as thousands of panicked people of Afghanistan mobbed the airport in an attempt to flee their country.

On this day dedicated to being grateful for my incredible life, I’m having difficulty getting past the raging monster fires spreading across the west, including my own beloved Lake Almanor area, the Delta variant threatening our health care system, the melting icebergs, lost animal species, and the incomprehensible rise in violence as our political differences turn toward madness. 

Watching desperate people flee a disintegrating government only deepens my rising sense of despair and hopelessness. My rose-colored glasses are circling the drain. Stop! 

But, stopping this cycle is like applying brakes to a locomotive. All I hear is the squealing of metal on metal as sparks fly. However, stop I must. Beyond this point, there be dragons.

I know gratitude helps. It’s a light in the darkness, but the shadow that holds me does not want to let go. It feeds me “but-what-abouts” until I gag. It tells me horror stories of past and present, paints pictures of apocalyptic bleakness, hellscapes of a dying world.

This, too, shall pass.

 The words are a whisper, but enough to calm my breath.

This, too, shall pass.
Everything changes.

I begin to list my right-now reality: I am alive, I’m amazingly healthy, sitting in a beautiful place surrounded by mountains, trees, and pristine air. There is food in my refrigerator, clean water from the tap, and the wifi is working. Friends are a phone call away; birds are singing; it’s a brand new day.

I remember what I have survived: death of loved ones and friends, disappointments galore, divorce, financial set-backs, lost jobs and homes I loved, a lonely childhood, and almost 76 years of life.

Gratitude slowly seeps back into the day as a blue bird explores the screen of my front door. I hear a squirrel digging through gravel to find a buried acorn and feel the cool morning air. All around me new acorns are growing, green apples are slowly turning red, and the top leaves of the poplars are turning yellow. Life is going on, turning into autumn, dancing to its own rhythms. I can’t control it, but I can flow with it.

Resilience and Gratitude

In a Psychology Today article, Jeff Thompson, Ph.D., Adjunct Associate Research Scientist at the Molecular Imaging and Neuropathology Division of the New York State Psychiatric Institute at Columbia University Medical Center, states:

“One key aspect of resilience is having gratitude practices.”

Canadian life coach Ray Samuels defines resilience as “functioning with a sense of purpose, meaning and forward momentum in the face of trauma.” Today’s world overflows with trauma, to the point that all of us seem to be just a bit shell-shocked, reacting to the many challenges of the world with fear, anger and symptoms of PTSD (post-traumatic stress disorder).

Gratitude may be the best healer. It doesn't change the circumstances, but it helps us manage them. As Jeff Thompson reminds us: “It reminds you that if you stop and pause, there is still good all around us and it is happening each day.” That’s what helped pull me out of the feelings of despair that surrounded me this morning: recognizing the good that surrounds me, remembering that I have weathered other storms, and knowing that I’m not alone.

4-word advice

Actor Joseph Gordon-Levitt asked Facebook readers what advice they would give their younger self … in exactly 4 words. The responses were golden (choose your friends carefully) … and sometimes brutal (do not marry him). The one that stuck with me was the most was “life does not wait.” I decided that my addition to that list would be Brother Steindl-Rast’s famous dictum: Everything is a gift!

 On my morning walk, while the jays squawked and the squirrels scurried, my mood lifted as I absorbed vitamin-N. I realized that I am actually grateful for the pain I’m feeling for the world right now. It means I’m human and have a heart. It means I can feel the pain of others; that I am connected; that we are all connected. 

In a life where I’ve often felt alone and disconnected, I am grateful for these feelings; grateful to be a part of life with all it’s sparkling joys and all its piercing disappointments. 

Topping off the morning walk was a gift: a small, blue Stellar's Jay feather: a reminder of other days, in a world where Jonathan Livingstone Seagull soared and the sequel Illusions introduced me to the power of rare, although simple and believable, gifts. I've been here almost a year and this is the first of these beautiful feathers I've found. This one was right in the middle of the path where there was no way to miss it.

Choosing to feel grateful is a choice; choosing to practice gratitude in the toughest of times is a choice which yields amazing gifts and results.

Read more:

“Resilience and the Practice of Gratitude. How a gratitude practice can contribute to your inner strength,” Jeff Thompson, Ph.D., Psychology Today, March 29, 2020
https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/beyond-words/202003/resilience-and-the-practice-gratitude

Building Resilience through Gratitude

I’m cold … and it’s not even winter.

(Truth in blogging requires that I reveal this photo is from outside Reno (where I moved from) not from here, the place I'm whining about.)

 However, I am cold and believe the Universe is saying something to the effect of: “Your resilience muscles are flabby … time to toughen up.”

Of course, I didn’t know this when I made a sudden, spontaneous (is that redundant?) decision to uproot my just-recently-settled life in Reno and move to an RV in the mountains east of San Diego. You might think that meant I owned an RV and knew what winters were like in the Julian area. Not a chance on either count.

The Universe tricked me. I had a wild-hair idea and she kept making it easy to take the next step. I thought each step was a miracle that meant I was supposed to do this. I landed here seven weeks ago, and now know that somewhere there’s a devil-goddess doubled over in side-splitting laughter.

This is where I really am

Just so you have a more complete picture, I’m living in a lovely, ten year-old 37-foot fifth wheel with ALL the conveniences of a tiny home in a stunningly beautiful RV park surrounded with trees that I’ve fallen in love with. 

 

Should be paradise, huh? I’ve written earlier about some of the issues of a mechanically-challenged woman trying to swim through a mechanical world. So far, I haven’t drowned, thanks to dozens of YouTube videos, the advice of some kind neighbors and a gosh-awful plumbing bill … and was only without a toilet for a week. Fortunately, this park has some of the cleanest facilities I’ve seen, it’s just a bit chilly to get to them.

Anyway, there’s a point to all this rambling. As it’s gotten colder, I’ve begun to balance what I love about being here with the uncertainties of dealing with weather and mechanical mysteries. Heating an RV can be budget-challenging. Trying to live within that budget resulted in waking up this morning to a 46 degree house with a reluctance to use the gold-plated furnace or space heater. Extra layers of clothing help, but it’s not like sitting in front of a roaring fireplace. At some point, I had an epiphany in the form of a question … 

Who ever guaranteed that you’d always be toasty warm?

I began to think about indigenous women and pioneer women … how did they cope with winter? How did they keep their babies warm? I thought about Jeremiah Johnson (movie of same name) who wanted to be a mountain man and suffered through his own harsh learning curve of cold and hunger and being chased by people who wanted him dead. I even got around to wondering how prison camp survivors lasted sometimes for years under soul crushing conditions.

All of those people had few choices. They had to cope with what they were given, or die. Maybe that’s part of my issue: I do have choices. I could call this a mistake and go back to Reno, although there's no furniture left in that house. But, I really want to stay here and also need to respect my budget, so I get into this push-pull cycle, slogging through my own insecurities. 

In the midst of this vacillation, a friend called me and started reading to me … from my own book: Gratitude Miracles. It is a gratitude journal organized around thirteen four-week cycles focused on the benefits of practicing gratitude. 

 

Barbara said: “Listen to this … it’s from page 161 ...          

Robert Emmons, the world’s leading scientific expert on gratitude says that, in troubling times, “not only will a grateful attitude help — it is essential. In fact, it is precisely under crisis conditions when we have the most to gain by a grateful perspective on life. In the face of demoralization, gratitude has the power to energize. In the face of brokenness, gratitude has the power to heal. In the face of despair, gratitude has the power to bring hope. In other words words, gratitude can help us cope with hard times.” 

 

She went on to insist that I should get the book out into the world because people needed to be practicing gratitude, especially in this time of a pandemic and so much political turmoil. (Actually, the journal is available on amazon.com)

 

I agreed and thought I needed to be the first person in line for it. While I’ve developed an attitude of gratitude, I haven’t been officially practicing it, so I brought out a copy and turned to page 161, which is part of the benefit cycle of Resilience. What I read launched my third journey through this journal, starting with Week 1 of Cycle 10: Gratitude Strengthens Resilience.

Already, I feel gratitude shifting my mind. I recognize that I have slipped into a mindset of not having enough, not being enough. This morning when I opened the door of my RV, I felt warm sunshine. It was still chilly but as I walked through the park, my spirit soared and I thought: I can solve these issues. I can stay warm enough (although maybe not my preferred 70-degrees); I can learn to deal with my RV issues and be smart about how I use my resources. 

 

 

All of this stuff is just falling leaves, changing of seasons. I can stay in this place that feeds my spirit ... or I can decide to do something else. It's my choice and I will be grateful for whatever comes, including the lessons that build my resilience. 

 

You can learn more about the Gratitude Miracles journal and resilience here.