If the only prayer you ever say in your entire life is thank you, it will be enough – Meister Eckhart
Gratitude is the one practice we should all strive to develop and live by every moment of our lives. Once we start looking at life through the magical lens of gratitude, the real beauty of life starts to unfold. Our focus shifts from our problems to our joys. The realization that we already have all that we need to be happy, starts to set in. It is certainly a blissful way to live. But what does it really mean to live with gratitude? How does one incorporate this into a daily practice? How do we learn to feel gratitude?
For me, my experience with gratitude began on one specific journey. At the age of ten, I, a little girl from a small village, got on an airplane with my mom and brother to join my father in a faraway land. Everything from the plane flying through the whimsical clouds, the sight of the enormous oceans, the huge city sprawls, and the flow and order in which our universe moved definitely left a permanent stamp of gratitude on my soul.
But, it wasn’t until many years later when our children were young that I actually reached out to gratitude as a daily practice. It is certainly difficult raising children in scarcity but it can also be challenging to raise grounded children in a culture of materialistic abundance. With a bombardment of ads, peer pressures, and accessible, huge toys stores how do you teach children that they have enough? How do you teach them that all this is not necessary to be happy? How do you teach them to appreciate all that money can not buy?
I was constantly soul searching for the answers. I read as many magazine articles as I could get my hands on. It was the only easily accessible information available in those days and all I had time to read. Eventually, the answer came to me loud and clear. Children need to focus on and learn to appreciate what they have. They need to feel good about what they are blessed with. So in our home, we started the practice of counting 5 things we were grateful for every day before bed. Each day we decided to add one new thing to our practice. When challenged to find something new, the mind starts to focus on all the small, precious joys of life. It certainly helped my children become conscious of their blessings. But more importantly, it helped me focus and appreciate so much more in my own life.
Years later while reading The Secret by Rhonda Byrne (if you haven’t read it, I would strongly recommend it), I had what Oprah would call an “Aha” moment. In this book, while discussing gratitude, Lee Brower talks about keeping a rock in his pocket. Every time he touched this rock he had to think of something in his life he was grateful for. While, I didn’t put a rock in my pocket, I certainly had the realization that gratitude doesn’t have to be left for the end of the day! Why couldn’t one live with gratitude?
No, I am not overly optimistic. I know life happens, it’s not always fair, it’s not always pleasant and it’s often not what we anticipated. But it is precisely at these moments that we need to focus on all that is right in our lives. We must learn to appreciate all that we are blessed with. This appreciation helps us change our focus and therefore our perspective.
Often, minor things upset us. We fall into the cultural trap of constantly finding things to complain about. Over time our minds get cluttered and actually start to believe that our lives are terrible. When we are faced with real problems that need clarity and vision we don’t have it. It’s a self-fulfilling prophecy.
How many of us are guilty of being upset when we are in a traffic jam? Impatiently, watching the snail pace of the traffic; constantly looking at our watch; getting upset and angry; we curse everyone and everything around us. (Not to mention our rising blood pressure and all the unkind things we are doing to our own bodies). Now imagine instead of trying to control that which is not in our control, we focus on controlling our reaction to the situation. What if we were able to accept the situation as is. If we shift our focus to the fact that we are sitting in a very comfortable vehicle, protected from natural elements, may be able to listen to some great music. If someone is at home waiting for us, how lucky are we to have that someone? It’s just a matter of focus, isn’t it?
The most challenging, yet the most rewarding situation is when we get into an argument or are upset with a loved one. These are the people that bring so much joy, love, and laughter into our lives. Yet when we are upset our egotistic mind only focuses on what they are saying and how they are hurting us. What if we changed our focus and remembered all the things we love about them and how wonderful they make us feel majority of the time? Once this becomes a habit, try to focus on the goodness of this person right in the middle of an argument! Magic!! (That point you were trying to prove can be addressed during calmer times).
For those moments when life truly feels unfair and tough, isn’t it a blessing that we are alive? That pulse, that heartbeat, that breath we often take for granted is still going. We have another chance, another day to learn and grow, to right our wrongs.
Life is a true blessing full of little joys, so let’s find them and focus on them through gratitude!
I would love to hear how you practice gratitude in your life and how it has made a difference for you.
With Love,
Devinder ❤️
Published in the Canadian Immigrant March 13, 2018
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