I started practicing gratitude daily during one of the darkest moments in my life—when everything in my life felt like it was falling apart, when the things I thought I could count on (my marriage, my mom, my identity) had shattered like a mirror. The shards I had to pick up reflected back to me my sad eyes and a broken spirit.
Daily gratitude was a practice my counselor recommended during our first meeting
“Write down five things you’re grateful for every day,” he encouraged. “Try it. I promise it will change your life,” he added, after seeing the doubt as I rolled my eyes.
I was desperate to try anything that would alleviate the pain. At first, there was no change. I didn’t feel calmer, more peaceful, less sad, less angry.
“I told you,” I said to him in a succeeding meeting.
“Keep going,” he urged me.
And I did.
Slowly, miraculously, this daily practice let in the light during this dark time. I became aware of tiny moments of joy and I clung to them, feeling, in that moment, somewhat saved. And I saw how much good there was still in my life despite heartbreak and pain.
This is a practice I’ve kept in my self-love arsenal—even after my three years of counseling were over, my relationships were healed and I found my way back to life and wholeness.
This year, I found my idea of gratitude shifting.
It wasn’t simply a search or an acknowledgement for what was already good in my life.
Instead, it was gratitude for ALL of my life, just as it is. It’s in the tiny joys and pleasures, the heartbreak and pain, the love and passion, the achievements and failures, the ordinary mundaneness of everyday routines, the slow pace of growth and change.
I’m calling this radical gratitude.
This idea was solidified by a prompt in Volume 4 of the Sunday Night Journal. It asked: What challenge in your life eventually turned out to be a blessing?
I wrote about how that dark time led to my healing, greater understanding for myself and more compassion for others. It led to a deeper relationship with my family, and to my path as a life coach and journal creator. While my experience was one that I would not wish on even my worst enemy, it had been an unexpected gift in my life. My counselor wisely told me, again in that pivotal first meeting, “what you’re going through will be the best thing that can happen to you.” I didn’t believe him then. I do now.
I realized the truth of what author Julia Cameron said in her book Faith and Will: “Either God is everything or God is nothing.” To continue this thought: and if God is love, then everything is then an act of love…even the things that broke my heart and spirit, the experiences that made me uncomfortable and made me run away or lash out in anger, the times when I was a less-than-decent human being, the moments when I didn’t get what I wanted, when success and results took their meandering time to get to me.
(I know, I know, how about rape? Or war? Or genocide? Or starving children? Is God in there too? How is that love? I believe that that’s when humans turn away from love because we always have the free will to choose.)
And this brings me to choices. Radical gratitude goes beyond finding five things to be grateful for every day (although that’s a really great start and that’s how I begun this journey). It is realizing that EVERYTHING is there to support your growth and evolution—and you can choose to approach whatever comes up with love and appreciation or you can feel bitter and victimized by circumstances. Radical gratitude combines both acceptance for your life as it is and responsibility for your choices without blaming yourself and others.
I am still solidifying this idea in my head as I’m writing to you. My notes for this post are filled with crossed-out words. I’ve also been using the backspace button a lot as I edit. This gratitude journey has been so interesting and insightful and my hope is that this sparks some recognition of truth in your heart. I will be continuing to explore this idea—maybe on my own, maybe in future blog posts.
