Tag: gratitude

With Me Still

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“You cannot know what you cannot feel.” – Mary Shelley

I hiked a trail this week that I had unconsciously avoided for 4 years and didn’t realize until I wrote a post about patterns. The last time before now that I had walked it was after I miscarried a baby at 10 weeks. But more than that, this trail reminds me of loss because I walked it so often with my beloved dad and dog.

When my dad died suddenly 7 years ago after colliding with a car on his bike, I naturally went through a range of emotions. One of the most recurrent was gratitude that my dad didn’t have to get old. When he died at age 79, he was still so vibrant and fit, retired but so active in the organizations he cared about. He would have made a terrible old person if somehow limited in what he could do. And he never had to find out.

Then my beautiful golden retriever collapsed on a walk 5 years ago when he was almost 14 years old. He was such an amazing companion, enthusiastic and faithful, and I was so grateful that the vet made it clear that the time had come and saved me and my dog the angst of trying to cure a cancer that would just torture us both.

After I lost my pregnancy in miscarriage, two years later I had my son. I have two happy and healthy kids that have a relationship that seems perfect for the age difference between them. I’m so grateful that how life worked out set their capabilities at just this range.

I truly live in all that gratitude AND still avoid the trail. When I walked it, I remembered all the times my dad and I walked and talked about so many deep and interesting subjects. I could practically see the way Biscuit the dog would wiggle in excitement at the trailhead and come out the other side so muddy and happy. I felt their absence so clearly but more than that, I felt their presence.

As I visited the beautiful old trees I’ve missed so much and looked out onto the amazing view of Puget Sound stretched before me, I realized that not feeling their losses didn’t save me any grief. It only robbed me of the opportunity to go walking with my dearly departed yet again.

We lose things in life. But we don’t have to set aside a part of ourselves to go along with them. I remember this every time I let myself feel the loss all the way through. More often than not, it isn’t that I’m consciously blocking feeling it, instead I’m just choosing to feel the gratitude instead of the ache. Then something like this trail comes along and reminds me that the ache is proof that the enthusiasm of my dad and the loyalty of my dog are with me still.

Foreboding Joy

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“Wear gratitude like a cloak and it will feed every corner of your life.” – Rumi

Standing side by side yesterday with my 82-year-old mom as I made Thanksgiving dinner and she made the apple pie, I felt the physical presence of gratitude: the warm heart, the loving hands, the palpable sense of how many years we’ve been doing this. It, combined with the sounds of my kids playing in the other room with my friends, would have brought me to my knees in a prayer of thanks had my hands not been covered with turkey.

As I counted my many blessings in that moment, I couldn’t help but feel that pang of fear. What if something changes? It was the counter punch of foreboding joy.

It was such a relief when I started listening to the work of researcher, educator, author Brené Brown when she talked about the fact that we all stand over our babies at night or loved ones in a vulnerable moment and feel that seizure of heart that is “what if something happened to them?” And more so, her research that says giving in to the foreboding joy but trying not to enjoy it too much doesn’t work.

In fact, the only thing that works is to be grateful. Which in the midst of Thanksgiving seemed like a perfect full circle thing to remember.

So I’m grateful I know that other people feel this. And that it doesn’t mean that something bad is going to happen.

I’m grateful I know that I don’t need crisis to change. Because I associate the foreboding with my past when things fell apart so they could come together again. I’ve come to recognize that I can both keep evolving and handle things as they come.

I’m grateful that even the day after Thanksgiving, what I’m grateful for is still at the fore.

I’ve heard Brené give the example of a man who she interviewed as part of her research. He talked about losing his wife of 40 years after a car accident. He regretted holding back even a little bit of love so that he wouldn’t lose it all if something happened to her. Because when something did, all he thought was that he should have enjoyed it all more.

I’m carrying that story with me as we move into the Christmas season and all that’s good ahead.

Thanksgiving

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“The longer I live, the more beautiful life becomes.” – Frank Lloyd Wright

Last year my daughter and I painted a little wooden box with the word “grateful” on top. I set it on a shelf in our family room and we created a ritual of writing down what we are thankful for on a particular day. And sometimes my son comes along, pulls out the drawer and dumps all the little pink slips onto the floor. Which creates a whole other practice of counting the things we are grateful for. 🙂

But I love Thanksgiving for the practice of making me think about what all those daily gratitudes amount to in the big picture.

I am thankful for my divorce. It brought me to a complete halt. But sometimes there is no way to go a different direction unless you stop going the previous direction.

I am thankful for that insistent whisper that I had to talk to my dad about his life and faith. But for that, I would have never broached the subject that opened us up to so many dear and delightful conversations because I was afraid that my views, my meditation practice and my faith were too different.

I am thankful for the gut wrenching desire to have a family even as an unmarried woman in her late 40’s. There was nothing in my previous life that would have marked me as a go-it-on-your-own person before that overwhelming guidance made it impossible to ignore.

I am thankful to the deep need to share with others that has led me to write. The daily practice of blogging has created a depth, thoughtfulness and perspective in me that has enriched my life. It has also enabled me to meet and read so many delightful and wise people whose paths I wouldn’t have crossed otherwise.

I am thankful that all of these things have come together in a way with my faith in God so that I KNOW this is my life to lead. On the many days that I’m so incredibly tired, I am just tired, not resentful because this is my path.

I’m grateful that my list of people, events and things to be thankful for is long and getting longer. I’ve known times in my life when it was getting shorter. It has made me appreciate the many blessings and the beauty of this world with deeply.

Happy Thanksgiving to all!

In Feeling

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“The problem with this world is that we draw our family circle too small.” – Mother Teresa

Here’s the way sickness travels in my family. One kid gets sick, the other one gets it and then finally I get sick. Fortunately, I don’t always get sick but if I do, I’ll be last to get it. And when I do, I learn how brave my kids have been.

This time it was my daughter who got a stomach bug first last weekend. She spit up a few times and then said, “Wow, I’ve never thrown up 4 times in a day before. When are we going to go hiking?” I replied that I thought she might want to rest given that she didn’t feel well. She exclaimed she felt fine so we went.

Then my son got it mid-week. It was very clear because I opened his door to get him out of his crib in the morning, and instantly got hit with the smell. “I sneezed it out!” he exclaimed, not all that upset. He stayed home from school but he too said he felt “good” and was pretty peppy playing around all day.

I thought I’d avoided getting it too until this weekend when my body, probably exhausted from all the cleaning, just gave up and succumbed. I wondered how the heck my kids were so delightful when their bodies were fighting this bug. It always looks easier when someone else is doing it, doesn’t it? As usually happens with getting sick, it comes with a huge heap of humility and admiration too.

This made me think of the words sympathy and empathy. Sympathy from the Greek of sun (with) + pathos (feeling). Oxford languages defines sympathy understanding between people, common feeling.  

Empathy, a word I hear so often these days in conjunction with raising emotionally intelligent kids, is from the Greek of em (in) + pathos (feeling). It is defined by Oxford languages as the ability to understand the feelings of another.

In my little family we have so many opportunities to have sympathy for each other because we share so much context at this stage – the people we know, the many hours we spend all together, the illnesses we pass along. It may be the easiest time for us to all stand in common feeling. And if we get that right, at least some of the time, it helps us become more empathetic toward others because we have the family experience of feeling understood.

The other thing I was reminded of as the illness ran its course is how much energy I spend resisting being sick. I didn’t want to throw up and I managed not to. But in hindsight, it may have made it last longer overall. Sometimes we just have to let the bad out so that the healing can begin, a lesson I keep having to repeat.

It’s funny as I type this thinking of my gratitude towards this stomach bug. It created a shared family experience, reminded me that resistance to uncomfortable things is often a harder route to go and most of all, makes me so thankful that we all feel well again. If only there was a virus that could unite our bigger human family….

(featured image photo from Pexels)

Practicing Gratitude

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“The more grateful I am, the more beauty I see.” – Mary Davis

Yesterday I my daughter and her friend wanted to ride their bikes to school. So I loaded up my toddler on the back of my bike, threw my mask and wallet in a small backpack and shepherded them through the route we’d planned. After we dropped them off, I rode my toddler the rest of the way to his daycare.

After coming back home and finishing the essential work items I needed to get done, I drove to the store to do the weekend grocery shopping. I loaded my basket with all sorts of yummy fall weekend ingredients – for pumpkin bread, homemade chicken soup along with crisp, juicy apples and crunchy green grapes. I opted for the self-checkout line, scanned the bottle of wine I’d selected as my first item and then hunted in my purse for my wallet to show the attendant.

I didn’t have my wallet. It was still in the bike riding backpack.

As I drove the 7 minutes home to get it while my groceries waited patiently with the attendant, I was grateful that I had enough time to do the extra trip back and forth in a quiet car that felt like a driving meditation.

As I drove the 7 minutes back to the store, I was grateful that the wine was the first thing I’d scanned.

And when I arrived back at the store, I was grateful that the basket of items that I’d carefully selected was still waiting for me.

It’s true what they say, practicing gratitude makes it easier to find, even when you’ve forgotten the other things you need.

Low Battery Indicator

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“Worry does not empty tomorrow of its sorrow, it empties today of its strength.” – Corrie ten Boom

The battery in the carbon monoxide detector ran low last night. At 11:21pm actually which is when I opened my eyes and realized that the high-frequency pip-pip-pips I was hearing weren’t actually a part of my dream but something else. Then I was thrust into comical action mode as I, being as quiet as I could, hunted down which safety device was emitting these sounds before it awoke the kids. When I got my hands on the thing I stood by the kitchen sink trying to slip out the battery and sleepily tried to reassure myself that it was just a low battery warning and not an alarm itself. On one hand, I wasn’t sure I even knew what it would sound like if it was trying to alert us but on the other hand, there was nothing on inside the house that I thought could be producing carbon monoxide.

I was pretty sure it was low batteries. But that isn’t a 100% and a lot of worries can slip through that crack between pretty sure and positive. And I’m quite sure I’m not alone with this, but when I’m worried, it’s hard to go to sleep.

Worrying for me is that need for certainty. To be certain that everyone is safe. To know what will happen in that meeting I’m thinking about. To have a response to any criticism that I could imagine might arise. To know the end of the story. Worry is the indicator that my faith is running on low batteries.

As I climbed back into bed, I suddenly felt exhausted by my monkey mind worrying through all the factors prompted by a device that is supposed to keep us safe. The only thing I think of was to count the things I was grateful for instead…

That the kids didn’t wake up

That I have other detectors that were silent

That my heart was beating slower now

That now I had an idea of what to blog about in the morning

That I managed to get a good night’s sleep after all.

Gratitude Journal

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“The best and most beautiful things in the world cannot be seen or even touched – they must be felt with the heart.” – Helen Keller

I woke up early this morning and sat down to meditate as I do every morning. When I sit on the cushion, usually what I’ve been worrying about, sweating the details of or puzzling over comes up. So I spend the next few minutes leaning in to whatever it is that’s got me by the throat and trying to make friends with it. If I’m lucky, I get a few moments of that stillness that feeds my soul somewhere in the process.

However, this morning nothing rushed towards me. My family is doing fine. There are plenty of things I could and probably will worry about sometime but at this moment, none are pressing. I am full – of rest and love and faith that all will be okay. Wow wow wow!

So here’s my list of things I’m grateful for to mark this spectacular moment:

A parent that I never met created a fund for the teachers who are ran a camp for our kids this week. While the teachers were with our kids, someone smashed the windows of their cars and took backpacks and coats. I’m grateful that in response to that unkindness, someone did the work to unite us in kindness and care as a community to help pay for the repairs.

My daughter and I rode our bikes to a local donut shop and instead of bringing my wallet, I just brought a $20 bill. Turns out that they stopped accepting cash as part of COVID and so when we went pay after we’d ordered, I didn’t have a way to do so. A dad with his kids outside saw this happen and went in and got the order they’d restocked after we’d turned away. When I tried to give him my cash, he said, “I don’t take cash either.” I’m grateful we rode away from there with food in our bellies and the warmth of strangers in our hearts.

When I wondered to myself this week about whether I’m doing the work I should be and specifically whether I should spend time writing, I received two comments that helped me know that I’m heard and valued. I’m grateful that the mysterious process of asking for what I need from the Universe worked to keep my head in the game so that my heart can speak.

My daughter made a sign that said, “Yor the best mom.” While I appreciate the words, I’m most grateful that she learned to read and write in a year where she mostly had online Kindergarten. I’m grateful that she is learning the immense value of words to reach other people and to share what I love, which is to read and understand someone else’s experience.

My 82-year-old mother golfed with some new friends in a tournament about an hour from where she lives. I’m so grateful that she is so healthy, resourceful and energetic as to be able to find all sorts of ways to enjoy life at every age.

One evening this week I was watering plants with my son and he ended up soaked. I laid out a blanket on the ground with a couple of pillows and after I covered him with a towel, we laid there together and looked up at the dazzling evening blue sky. I’m grateful that even without too many words, we can look at the same beautiful view, point, laugh and know that we belong to each other.

I’ve listened and read so much great content lately (many mentioned in this post) that seems to be converging on the wisdom to give up perfectionism and celebrate being the messy, imperfect and authentic person I am. I’m so grateful that I woke up this morning and that for today, I feel like I am enough.

Whole-Hearted Joy

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“Hem your blessings with thankfulness so they don’t unravel.” – unknown

One of my friends has a beautiful ten-year-old golden doodle. They walk miles together every day and he’s constantly by her side. From nearly the moment she got him as a puppy, I’ve heard her say, “Oh, I’m going to miss you when you’re gone.” Foreboding joy. Trying to protect from feeling so much love by reminding ourselves it will end.

I remember hearing MSW and research professor Brené Brown talk about that feeling that steals over us when we go in to check on our kids at night. Standing over their beds watching them sleep, she said it’s nearly universal that we imagine the horror of losing them. I was so relieved. I thought it was just me. Foreboding joy. As Brené Brown says, “What we do in moments of joyfulness is, we try to beat vulnerability to the punch.”

It’s the reason I never want to have it all – happy marriage, beautiful family, good health. If things are going too well, I’m afraid that something will have to fall apart. Is it possible that the hidden underlying reason that I chose to become a single-parent is not wanting to have too good of a life? There are too many circumstantial things to go that far but there’s a nugget of truth that I feel in some twisted way less vulnerable when life is as much work as I’m putting in each of these days.

The antidote the Brené Brown has found through her research is gratitude. The people that Brené calls whole-hearted people from her studies are the ones who can embrace joy with open arms because they are so grateful. And practicing gratitude every day with a gratitude journal or a routine at dinner for everyone to name something they are grateful for is the way we lean in to it.

I wrote a post recently about my dad dying suddenly in a bike accident so I’ve been thinking a lot about what happens when the phone rings with terrible news. I know that gratitude has carried me through many of those tough moments – grateful that I was lucky enough to get him as a father, grateful that he didn’t suffer, grateful that we didn’t have to make tough choices about his care had it not been a sudden death, grateful that I have half of my lifetime of fun memories with him. None of the grief has been easy but the more I’ve celebrated who my dad was and the relationship we shared, the less I’ve suffered the ache of not having him.

So it seems like gratitude works on both ends – to keep us feeling the full joy of things as they happen and comfort us when the worst comes to pass. A worthwhile price to pay for whole-hearted joy!

Becoming Real

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“I am still in the process of growing up, but I will make no progress if I lose any of myself along the way.” – Madeleine L’Engle

My nanny sees the same massage therapist, Deirdre, as I do and as does my sister-in-law who used to nanny for me. The other day Deirdre told my nanny that she can feel the side that each of us carries my baby on. Because of course he isn’t a baby any more, he’ll be two this month and he’s 30+ pound bundle of love. So we contort our bodies to accommodate his weight and motion, cook one-handed and endlessly stoop to pick things up off the floor twisting to use one arm while balancing his heft with the other. Even when I’m pushing the baby in the stroller, I sometimes find myself on situations where I carry my daughter on my shoulders and hold a door open with my foot to get the stroller through. Then we schedule an appointment with Deirdre to help us put our bodies back together.

I’m happy to contort myself for my children. That feels like part of the process of extending myself to help them grow. But it makes me think the ways that I’ve contorted myself in relationships. Because carving my work and enjoyment time out of the space after I’ve made sure everyone else is taken care of and living in a house where projects don’t get finished and supplies are spread all over sounds like what comes with the parenting territory but also describes what I’ve previously done for some the men in my life.

With kids, this is tolerable because I know they’ll change. And even if they don’t learn how to pick up after themselves, one day they will not live with me, or so I hope. But when I think back the relationships I’ve had, I think I’ve often contorted myself because I’ve been unwilling to say, “I can’t live like this.” And if I dig really deep, I have to admit that don’t say that because I believe that love requires women to not ask for what they need and to instead just be grateful for what they have.

But I am starting to reshape that belief. Because when I play a role, I don’t feel seen as me. Then I require time away so I can take the role off and need people like Deirdre to restore me. I’m coming to see I only have endurance for life that is authentic and that is changing how I show up. I’ve come to see being real as part of having faith that others will truly love me if I do the hard work to let them.

What I’m learning is that there are a hundred little ways to practice saying what I need so that I can change alongside my kids. “Clothes” is sometimes all I have to utter to remind my daughter to pick up the outfit she just took off and threw on the ground instead of doing it myself. “Not now” buys me a rest from exertion when my body is just too tired. And “I’d like” is a great preface to naming what I want to do for fun. The repetition is necessary for both me and for them. I’ve been able to see how I can be optimistic, warm and loving AND real. I’m finding that I have a lot of opportunities to practice being grateful for what I have — and also asking for what I need.

Discovering our Plenitude

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“When little people are overwhelmed by big emotions it’s our job to share our calm, not join their chaos.” L.R. Knost

Yesterday was our first day back to “life” after our short vacation to Whidbey Island. My toddler had to go back to daycare, my 5-year-old daughter had nothing planned because it was the first day of summer break at home and I tried to work while my nanny hung out with my daughter. After the little bit bumpy jarring of re-entry, we were all together last night and found ourselves gathered around the strawberry planter on the back patio. The warm weather and lack of pickers for few days meant it had about eight perfectly ripe berries.

My son, who at almost two years old doesn’t have a perfect picking technique and sometimes will eat the stem, was first to get his hands in there. Which led my five-year-old daughter to want to control the process. She started grabbing berries and instead of eating them, just holding them in her hands. She then grabbed one out of my son’s hands in an effort to pluck the stem out for him and he started to melt down. In good circumstances, he lets her do most everything and she’s quite supportive of him but in that moment, all the pains of the day descended and for everyone, THERE WASN”T ENOUGH!

I was trying to manage the scrum all the while observing the feeling of when life doesn’t go our way. When we get parked in our small spaces because something has been hard or tiring and suddenly there’s no energy to be expansive, to recognize that there’s enough. Everything centers on one moment when that ball in the gut feels like it needs to get fed or else.

This is one of the first times that I observed that happening collectively to us as a family. Probably not because it hasn’t happened before but because I wasn’t tuned in to see it. When it happens to me as an individual, if I can have a split second of awareness, one deep breath helps me start to break the pull of it. But the group dynamic flummoxed me until the cat jumped onto the fence and everyone looked up at the sound and it broke the tension.

I don’t like these moments. They pull me out of my happy place, or my I’m doing fine place, whichever I am at, and remind me of my humanity. When we break into a collective feeling of scarcity and panic, I feel like walking away. I heard Melinda French Gates once describe a family as a mobile and that moms often take on the job of keeping the whole system balanced. Sometimes I don’t feel like leading but the strawberry scrum is so ripe for a teaching moment, for me and for my children. It offers the chance practice awareness, distraction and feeding our possibility, expansiveness and calm and because I know they’ll be many more, also gratitude for the opportunity to remember we always have enough.