My new year’s resolution this year was to take initiative to really take care of myself. I started some physical therapy to deal with regularly occurring headaches and I finally followed my own advice that I’ve given to many others, and found a counselor. I’ve believed for a long time that a good, well-trained psychologist is beneficial in ways different than that of a dear friend or spiritual director, yet I kept putting it off, partly because I always felt so helped and supported by friends or spiritual directors. I get anxiety. My mind goes to the worst-case scenario of any given scenario and I’m exhausted and weary of trying to prepare for the worst. One of the things that motivated me to finally seek help was realizing how much my worry affects those around me. If I’m exhausted from a sleepless night, that affects my kids. If I’m paralyzed by my worry, that affects my household. I read books, got help from friends, but it was time to see what someone with professional studies, experience and training could teach me. I would recommend being proactive about your well-being. You are a whole person and when one part of you is healthier, all of you will be healthier.
I tend to be an optimistic person. Because of that, I have always been pretty aware that many people assume I am naïve. I still feel defensive about that assumption. Just because I have hope in a dark situation does not mean I’m ignoring the situation or have my head up in the clouds about reality. I actually am strongly opposed to certain attitudes of “being positive” that do lead to ignoring or glossing over the hard things in life. So, when my counselor told me she would like me to keep a gratitude journal, I was a little skeptical. Wouldn’t this be the equivalent of just “focusing on the good things” while ignoring the bad? However, she told me there are many studies that show a strong correlation between practicing gratitude and having less anxiety. She quoted scripture (I had previously told her I was Christian) “have no anxiety at all, but in everything…give thanks” (Phil 4:6-7). She reminded me that therapy is therapy because there’s work. Then I remembered Brene Brown also stating a correlation she found between gratitude and being less anxious. So, I decided to try it. I’m a list maker and I knew I would forget to write things down every day. My goal was to end with 1,000 different things of which I was grateful, inspired by the book “1,000 Gifts” that I read several years ago. I decided I would write down 25 things a week. Here’s my experience.
I returned to the present moment. My counselor recommended that I especially try to think of what I’m grateful for in moments of anxiety. When I feel my heart rate starting to rise and my head going into worst-case scenarios, I needed to try to pause and think about gratitude. This was not exactly easy, but I was pleasantly surprised to realize that rather than put my head in the clouds and ignore the bad situation, this practice actually brought me back to reality, because it brought me back to the present moment. My anxiety lives in some hypothetical future. My anxiety is actually what’s up in the clouds! By returning to the present moment, rather than trying to live in a world that doesn’t exist, I was filled with considerable peace again. Of course, it wasn’t perfect, but the forced return to reality from the hypothetical did, in fact, lessen my anxiety in the moment. My counselor told me bluntly several times that my worries were wasted mental energy. She was right, my mental energy was being spent in a world that doesn’t even exist. How refreshing to spend mental energy on the things that do exist! This practice of gratitude, especially in the moment, unexpectedly helped to waste less mental energy.
I reflected on the past truthfully. At first, it was easy to write down what I was grateful for. There were all the usuals that we are regularly reminded how good we have it- a warm house, full belly, generally good health etc. After a few weeks though I had to think a little harder. I found myself choosing themes and writing them down- specific seasons, specific groups of people, specific places. I had to pay attention to details. Sometimes as I got going on a theme writing down word after word that came to mind from that era, a memory would stop my pencil in its tracks. That person deeply offended me, this heart-wrenching event happened at that location, this body part has scars…should I still write them down? This happened repeatedly. I would go to write down an object of gratitude and then be jarringly shook by a memory related to that object. Maybe I am supposed to write down only the things I am purely grateful for, the things that are not tainted with wounds, pains and unforgiven grievances. However, as I had started centering my lists around themes, it was impossible to separate my life into two categories- good and bad; or that which I’m grateful and that which I’m not. It was all too entangled together, leaving out something meant leaving out so much goodness and joy, even when the joy had a hue of grief. The truth of the matter is, I actually am still very grateful for that person who hurt my feelings, so I wrote down her name with conviction. I am grateful for that location that was a place of turmoil and stress, but also learning and connections. I am very grateful for the 3 scars on my stomach that remind me what I did to bear life. I am even mysteriously grateful for the syndrome that makes all the connective tissue in my body weak and took several of my family members too soon. I was afraid that creating a gratitude journal would be a practice in just “being positive” but it was actually quite the opposite. It actually re-opened old wounds that had been forgotten, and started, slowly, to heal them. Even if I tried to only be grateful for the ‘positive’ it wasn’t possible. The so-called ‘positive’ was all intertwined with the so-called ‘negative’ and was not able to be separated. As I reflected on the things, people and moments that I felt maybe I wasn’t supposed to be grateful for…it just wasn’t true. In some incomprehensible way, I was grateful for certain things labeled as ‘bad.’ Rather than a practice in parsing out and focusing on the positive, it became a practice in the appreciation of the connection of my life to the world, a connection that makes me extremely grateful.
Remaining in awe and wonder. Lastly, my experience of practicing gratitude brought a renewed sense of awe and wonder. I’m not usually too big into details, but this therapy forced me to narrow in on the intricate details of life. Colors- there are so many colors, and then there are so many shades of those colors. Our bodies- they heal, they have multiple systems working together, they have so many parts down to the smallest cells. Animals- there are over 5,000 species of frogs. (I read that in my son’s book). That is one animal and even in that one animal there is more diversity than I can fathom. Remaining in awe and wonder, I think, is the posture of gratitude. I can refrain from placing a value judgment- good or bad, like or don’t like and just be in awe. I am so grateful to have been forced to be grateful.