Practicing Gratitude

For me, and for many of us, our first waking thought of the day is, “I didn’t get enough sleep.”  The next one is, “I don’t have enough time.”  Whether true or not, that thought of not enough occurs to us practically before we even think to question or examine it.  We spend most of the hours and days of our lives hearing, explaining, complaining, or worrying about what we don’t have enough of….we don’t have enough exercise.  We don’t have enough work.  We don’t have enough profits.  We don’t have enough power.  We don’t have enough wilderness.  We don’t have enough weekends.  Of course we don’t have enough money—ever. 

We’re not thin enough, we’re not smart enough, we’re not pretty enough or fit enough or educated or successful enough, or rich enough—ever.  Before we even sit up in bed, before our feet touch the floor, we’re already inadequate, already behind, already losing, already lacking something.  And by the time we go to bed at night, our minds race with a litany of what we didn’t get, or didn’t get done, that day.  We go to sleep burdened by those thoughts and wake up to the reverie of the lack….What begins as a simple expression of the hurried life, or even the challenged life, grows into the great justification for an unfulfilled life.  …..

We each have a choice, in any setting to step back and let go of the mind-set of scarcity.  Once we let go of scarcity, we discover the surprising truth of sufficiency.  By sufficiency, I don’t mean a quantity of anything.  Sufficiency isn’t two steps up from poverty or one step short of abundance.  It isn’t a measure of barely enough or more than enough.  Sufficiency isn’t an amount at all.  It is an experience, a context we generate, a declaration, a knowing that there is enough and that we are enough.

Sufficiency resides inside each of us, and we can call if forward.  It is a consciousness, an attention, an intentional choosing of the way we think about our circumstances. 

It seems like everyone is talking about gratitude these days, so I am going to jump on the same bandwagon as everyone else.  Tis the season, no?

Too often in our lives we spend the majority of our time thinking about what we don’t have, or want to have, or need to have, and not enough time thinking about what we do have.  That is where practicing gratitude can be so powerful.   When we stop and appreciate the big and little things around us that we do have, it brings us a greater sense of joy and happiness.  For that moment in time, we appreciate the beauty of reality—what is here and now. 

I recently came upon this passage from Lynne Twist, who wrote The Soul of Money, and it filled my heart with sadness, but also a sense of relief because she offers a new lens to look through. 

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This holiday season, I call upon you to do what Lynne suggestions.  Look toward your life as being sufficient, rather than scarce.  Practice gratitude, and be thankful for all that you do have, not all that you don’t.  Be grateful for the small wonders and ordinary moments, as well as the grand and extraordinary.  And if it is people you are grateful for, let them know.  Share your gratitude with them, and allow your connection to continue to grow. 

Thank you for your continued support.

In gratitude,
Theresa