A YEAR WITH MYSELF
MODULE 46: JOY AND GRATITUDE
Wholehearted Living
Through Joy and Gratitude
I have long known the benefits of counting my blessings. I
just never knew the JOYs of having my own practise
where Gratitude is concerned. I might have NOT got this BEcause I had some NOT-so-pretty-to-own
thoughtsandfeelings about entitlement. Ahhhhhhh… the E-word.
Six years ago, in late December of 2006, I was living alone
in Sedona, Arizona, feeling sore and sad and so confused. My relationship of 12
years was coming apart [though at the time I thought we were apart only temporarily]
and it seemed I was desperately trying to herd frogs. This was a time that I
remember with much sadness BEcause, frankly, I didn’t have my head OR my heart
screwed on right about so many things. I was reacting, trying to force things
to fit in the size of the boxes I had. Furthest thing from my mind was
Gratitude, Practise, or JOY.
By happenstance and, thanks in large part to Google and my
own memory reaching back to 1985, I found a Fellowship for ME. And I found it online.
Suddenly I felt less apart, separate, alone, and more a part of. It was weird,
for sure, an online fellowship, but hey, it was 2006, progress is, as they say,
“all good.” All of the 12-Step “stuff” came back to me, like riding a bicycle.
It was sweet. It was also tidy, simple, and Right Where I Was.
And so it came to pass that I was invited into a
participatory Gratitude-Sharing Practise. I felt like I’d finally found the
right sort and size of boxes, and all those frogs hopped into line.
Well, sort of. I am sure I make it sound much simpler than
in fact it was.
Still…
In the BEginning of what is Now a blog called I Love You, Currie & a
daily email I send to NOT so many anymore, I was utterly fascinated by this way
of sharing and BEing shared with. For a Very Long Time I didn’t even see it as
a “practise” just an opportunity to connect. How had I grown so disconnected,
isolated, and apart from the World?!
A funny question in that last paragraph. Here I am in the
nearly-end of 2012, where everyone is sharing about taking technology breaks,
daily, and for whole days… A friend recently “fasted” with her church by
staying off Facebook and Twitter. Pretty much every week I read two or three
posts that address this new need we’ve come to have “living” as we DO Now,
online. Virtually. Electronically…
Sorry I got on that little tangent, but this is definitely a
reflective post. ;~D
Anyhow, as I read this week’s module, something happened.
Almost straightaway. I felt defensive. I felt “dissed” for my practise. I felt
judged.
WOW!!!
So I read it again, aware of myself and my tendencies in the
way I have BEcome DOing A Year With
Myself these past 46 weeks. I realised again that I automatically go there,
to the defensive Currie, the one who thinks that she must BE understood. And I
made her a cup of tea…
The thing that “people say” [which people and how they say
it will vary for you, mayBE there isn’t even a “THEY” for you like there is for
me…] about Gratitude is mostly just hooey. In my NOT-so humble opinion.
BEcause, Gratitude, like other practises [meditation, prayer, mindfulness…] is
personal. Individual. And really, it’s NOT to BE understood so much as simply
experienced.
And so, tea enJOYed, defensive Currie paused. She thought
back to where her head and heart and BEing were back in December 2006. She
pondered the Journey they’ve been on these past six years. She remembered, like
little twinkling lights, the connections and Life rafts her Gratitude Practise has
brought her, been for her, and sailed her to, BEtween, and BEyond.
And it was in that moment utterly clear that no matter what
any “they” may say, think, or imagine, Gratitude has revived my Life. It has
given me a focus. It has reminded me each and every day that it’s neither a
thing I DO for others nor for myself. It is a thing with a
Life of its own. Somedays I may know about its reach and somedays I don’t even
think of it again once it is written, sent, and posted.
There is so much richness and magic in this module’s 25pages. So very much. And what is exceptionally BEautimous to me is that nowhere
in it does it prescribe that Gratitude is something to Complete, to DO, or to
Achieve. I can’t “get BEhind” in Gratitude. I can’t “catch up” on it.
It is like the breath I just took. Gratitude is simply Me BEing
ME…
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