I wanted to talk a little about gratitude. Recently we have been talking about being in a crisis or even being in a situation in which you are being dealt a huge injustice. See HERE and HERE.

Often it is when gratitude is hard to find that we need it the most.

You see in the state of “gratitude” your ego moves out of the way and you open up to a direct link with wisdom and joy and to a place where solutions or right outcomes can emerge.

I myself have been in a crisis and I have been a victim of crime and I can tell you that without finding “gratitude” in a place that felt like I was an imposter in Satin’s Universe, I would not be writing this post today.

Everything I ever believed about humanity disintegrated as my soul plummeted to the depth of darkness. It is like I was pulled so far down that rebuilding was the only option. I was lucky that my mother found a tiny light in the situation and brought gratitude into my mind and into my being.

Three ways to find Gratitude are to:

Acknowledge that no matter what you are going through, there are people that have had to deal with worse.

One thing that I do is to help people in difficult situations. Recently I have been consumed in some pretty serious circumstances. Amongst the drama I was conscious that it was fast approaching the 1 year mark since my 13 year old daughter lost her best friend to suicide. I don’t even know how it happened but I found myself having a cup of tea with her mother. As I walked into the home, I have never felt an atmosphere so devoid of happiness in all my life. It was heart wrenching. The heaviness stayed with me for some time. It made the situations in which I was assisting that seemed so serious– nothing in comparison.

Find some positives in your scenario.

Be thankful for any element that has made it easier for you than it would have been for many others. This could be anything from financial resources to emotional support or physical factors that have been in your favour.

Know that there are no enemies.

There are conscious people and unconscious people. Sometimes people acting unconsciously hurt people and sometimes in the worst case their behaviour can constitute criminal activity for which the law will obviously take over.

For the majority, however, the people we consider to be enemies have stories or huge cups of suffering behind them. Having been involved in many people’s personal affairs, I can tell you that everyone has things going on behind closed doors. Everyone has some form of suffering that they have had to deal with or circumstances that would be considered highly undesirable.

Yet others might have had unloving upbringings whilst others may have become consumed by huge injustices. Sometimes I can see the effect of all the suffering that some individuals have been made to endure and I often think that if we really knew the backgrounds to our enemies then we really would disarm ourselves, drop our artillery, take back the unkind words,  transmute our hostile feelings and be grateful that we did not have to undertake so much suffering or even that it did not affect us in that way. Gratitude involves bringing out our ‘big hearts’ not our ‘big guns’.

 

Photography by MDH