Year of No Fear: Gratitude

This is an odd one because you’d typically think that there’s no fear involved in gratitude or a positive attitude, but I’m here to tell you that there is.

If you have clinical depression.  If life always seems to kick you in the teeth.  There’s a real fear there that things won’t ever change, so why bother torturing yourself with good, positive, grateful thoughts?

Yes, I’m wrong.  Utterly, hopelessly, heartbreakingly wrong.  And I’ve only discovered this maybe…I don’t know, 7 or 8 years ago?  I used to go to therapy, and my therapist suggested I think of three things I am grateful for each and every day.  (I used to roll them into my daily prayer.  Yes, I do still pray).  She said it doesn’t have to be something huge, but can be smaller things: being thankful for a working car to get work so you can make money; being glad that you have a toilet that works so…well, I’m sure you come up with a why; or something like an oven so you can cook your food.  Or a crockpot, to make working and making dinner easier.  A sunny day after three days of rain.  An author you love announcing her next book. Having legs that work so you can walk, run, and dance.  Having nice clothes to wear and not rags.  Having a good doctor instead of a quack.

It really works.  It always makes me feel better about whatever it is that’s going wrong in my life.  I also give thanks for the amazing people in my life — friends, family, co-workers — because without all of them, I’d be lost.

So when you’re in that habit, as I was, it’s fairly easy.  I never had to think too hard on anything.  There was always something to be grateful for.  Three somethings.

But lately, the depression has overshadowed it all.  Having health problems and limitations can be horribly depressing.  You wonder why it’s you.  You wonder if you’ll ever feel good again.  You wonder what’s next (I was very, very guilty of this last year with my eye).  You wonder how long you have to be tortured.  And so on.  And…that’s not very grateful, is it?  In fact, that’s the opposite. 

I have to remind myself that hey, this stuff sucks, but hey, it could always be worse.  Always.  I could be dying, for instance.  Or be blind (that’s a biggie — I used to try to give thanks every night that I could still see).  Or paralyzed.  Or have some horrific disease.  And so on.  And I thought, damn, I really am lucky.  I have this, this, this, and this, and there’s someone out there that doesn’t.  Being able to see is something you take for granted.  But how would I get through life blind?  Especially after being sighted my whole life?  Suddenly, having pain didn’t seem all that bad.  Crappy, especially on the bad days, but not so bad.

A lot of people make that their go-to phrase: “It’ll get better.  It could be worse, you know.”  And sometimes I think these words lose their meaning after hearing them so much.  But when you sit down and say, hey, life’s been horrible to me.  Maybe, just maybe, I need to remember the meaning of those words and give thanks.

To that end, I’m going to start a gratitude journal.  Every day I’ll write three things I am grateful for.  Anything goes.  Because lately, I’ve fallen out of the habit and allowed fear to take over.  And that’s just not good.

I invite you to do the same, even if you consider yourself a positive/grateful person.  You’ll never know what goodness lies ahead of you.  Take a few minutes and give thanks.  There is much to be grateful for if you but look.