Gratitude Isn't Just Nice, It's A Survival Technique
How to Actually Practice It
Gratitude has saved me from making a shitty experience even worse during many times in my life.
I know what you may be thinking. How practical is it to be grateful for something that impacts you initially in a negative or painful way?
I learned about true gratitude when I was 17.
I had a 1967 Mustang that was a functional piece of art. My grandmother owned it before it was gifted to me for my 16th birthday. My father had it painted a beautiful blue and that car was my ticket to freedom in so many ways.
One morning, I was driving in an unfamiliar part of North Little Rock and I ran stop sign, which resulted in a a sports car t-boning me, totaling his car, and seriously damaging mine on the driver's side door.
We weren't hurt, but my car was trashed; and I felt terrible about the driver of the other car, as he was driving it home from the shop from a previous accident.
When I got home, I had to make a plan to get the door fixed. I didn't have the money to fix the car, so I made a deal with my step-father for a loan. I also had to find a door so that the repair shop could replace it and paint it to match the body.
I found a door in a little town called Cabot, 30 miles north of Little Rock. I grew up in Cabot, so I had some old friends there ( I moved to Little Rock when I was 15) and I called my best friend to let her know that I was driving down to pick up a car door.
She said that she and some of her friends were going swimming that day and when I was done getting the car door, to come to the lake and swim.
So I did. And while there, I met the boy that was to become my first love. Our relationship was a significant event in my life because that's how first loves go. Mine happened to be a very happy first love, and one that taught me the importance of relationship in my life.
So where does gratitude fit into my little story?
I learned about how powerful true gratitude can be if you approach calamity in a practical way.
Gratitude is a state of being that endures and gets stronger the more you practice it.
What's the opposite of gratitude?
Entitlement.
I could have looked at this accident from an entitled viewpoint when I was 17.
Why me? I didn't deserve this! If only I had more money, I wouldn't have to sign a contract with my step-dad to pay off the $500 for the door and the repairs (it was 1984!).
How embarrassing is it to drive around with a busted door! Why can't someone give me a car that doesn't look like shit until I get the Mustang fixed?
Entitlement is the resistance to what is. It's a state of mind that when something goes sideways, your mind is constantly saying, "This is how it should've been," and you aren't grounded into what Actually Is.
When you act entitled, your mind is constantly looping with the thought, "This is what should have happened, how it should be now, and why me?"
Entitlement means you'll miss the gift of the disaster.
And when you stay in a state of gratitude about your life, you'll always get the gift at some point in your journey.
So what's gratitude look like from a practical point of view?
Step 1: Quit your bitching!
- When something bad happens, be aware of your tendency to spiral out of control with thoughts of entitlement.
- Instead, ask yourself: "What if this happened to set me up for something wonderful that I just can't see yet?"
Step 2: Stop the drama, and get still.
- Neutral is the space between breaths. Let things just be for a minute. Don't judge the experience.
Step 3: Find one thing in your environment that is solid, functional, and whole.
- Anchor yourself once you are neutral to something that is functional and intact in your immediate environment. In my case, my car still ran. I could still drive it to get from A to B. And I wasn't seriously injured or dead!
- If you are still breathing, anchor to that. You are still breathing for God's sake!
4. Let the moment of impact sink into your consciousness.
- When something monumental occurs, let it come into your mind fully. Let the moment matter. In order to survive the impact, you have to accept that the impact has occurred.
- Take a deep breath and just sit with it, and then your mind will naturally go to "Now what?"
5. Take the "Now What" approach and act accordingly.
- You are still alive. You survived another day!
- Gratitude is taking what life throws at you and being grateful you get another day to see where the gift might be. When I was 17, my gift was meeting my first love at the lake. And, I watched him pull out a drowning swimmer! He was a lifeguard and quite heroic!
Gratitude isn't about saying thanks all of the time, or pretending everything's ok when it clearly isn't. What gratitude is really about, at least for me, is being in tune with life enough to know that shitty things are going to happen, and you have two choices:
- Act entitled and make yourself miserable and everyone else around you annoyed, or
- Get grounded into the reality of what is, and say to yourself, "Now What?" and work with what you've got.
I was writing recently about the gifts my father(s) gave me regarding life.
Well, my mother gave me a gift one day when she told me to stop fighting life all of the time, and she began teaching me how to move with life and not against it.
When you resist what is, and refuse to work with what you've got, you'll miss the gifts that inevitably come when you choose to stop feeling entitled.
Gratitude reminds us that 99.9% of our lives are humming along pretty well. Not everything is bad or broken. And that's why gratitude is so functional and everlasting.
I believe the universe runs on gratitude, not entitlement.
Random fact about me: I bought the metal detector and can't wait to use it! Yay!