excruciating gratitude
It's now Thanksgiving week in the US (which is a holiday with a complex and fraught history re: the genocide of Native Americans) ...
... and while Thanksgiving time gives me pause to reflect on all of that history (by the way, you can click here to donate to the Native American Rights Fund, which fights to protect Native American rights & resources)...
... it also, of course, tends to make me think about gratitude and its role in life and magic.
Some folks have an easy time accessing the feeling of gratitude - which is fantastic.
I, personally, do not.
Life is grand and yet my mountain of self-pity is Morrissey-sized, and ready to avalanche down upon me the moment I slack on rigorous spiritual practice.
The truth that I come back to again and again that helps me access the warm sweet glow of gratitude despite my Morrissey-esque automatic response to life....
... is that gratitude is fucking excruciating.
It's excruciating because it entails humbling myself long enough to aside my habitual ego identity as "someone who's frustrated and lacking what she wants"...
... and opening up to feel the hugeness of the gift that's being laid upon me at every moment - friend's faces, trees, breath, food, conscious awareness itself.
Jacob Marrel, "A still life with grapes, pomegranates and peaches in a silver dish" (1671)
Ugh. Yuck. My ego is getting itchy just talking about it, lolz.
So if, like me, you have trouble getting into that warm fuzzy grateful feeling, I suggest you give this a shot:
Recognize that profound gratitude involves profound humility, and be willing to humble yourself. You may not have all that you want, but whatever your circumstance...
.... you're alive and aware and breathing right now as a human on this nutty planet called Earth and that in itself is a rather astounding and rare gift of fate.
best,
Carolyn
Author of Existential Kink