5 Comments:

Mary Beth: I've been having a bit of trouble with gratitude. You know my situation...

If gratitude is the appropriate response to life or God when good things happen to us, wouldn't that make something like being mad as hell the appropriate response when life or God does horrible things to us?

I've been there/done that on the anger. But it does make me wonder a bit about gratitude...

By  Paul, at 5:44 PM  

While I agree that gratitude is noble, I'd be extremely grateful for something to be extremely grateful for. Perhaps, like happiness, we're each responsible for finding gratitude in our everyday lives. And if so, perhaps I've got something to work towards.

By  TV, at 6:11 PM  

I hear You Paul. Anger is a natural response to devastating events in our lives , and it is often the force that pushes us forward; however, many times it becomes counter productive, causes people to get stuck, and can create further ill health and create blocks in a persons energy system that delay healing.

I can share that even during my own suffering I learned to have gratitude for the simplest things, absence of pain, small improvements in strength, just being a live, and even at time able to find gratitude for the struggle, as it was bringing me closer to God, myself, creativity, patience, nonjudgmental, deep, stronger compassion for all people and things. I also grew deeper in my prayer and meditation life. I developed an acute awareness of the fact that although my life, my pain, my limitations, really caused me intense loneliness I was still so much more blessed then most of my fellow human beings on this planet..
Getting reconnected with people had a huge impact on my all around well being.
Receiving support and being able to offer support to others , rekindled my own life force and furthered my certainty that healing was possible.

By  majamom, at 10:58 PM  

ME,
That s expression "Fake It TIll You Make IT , applies here as certain circumstances such as depression, loss of a loved one, being traumatized, leave a person flat with no hope because of the weight andf heavyness of the emotions that follow these things .
Just starting a list each day, naming 10 things for which you are grateful. They can be as simple as :
I am Grateful to be alive.

I am grateful I am sitting here writing my gratitude list.

I am grateful for my spoucse, child, friend, lover, pet etc

I am grateful for the sun, the rain, the flower blooming.
I am grateful for all food and nourishment I have
and so on.
Just doing this over a small period of time can awaken the emotion of Gratitude

By  majamom, at 11:05 PM  

Mary Beth - Right, I know what you mean. And anger's not where I'm at anymore.

I guess I've wondered about gratitude toward life or God for personal good fortune from the standpoint that some people have terrible fortune. So I guess I wonder whether either gratitude or anger toward life or God for our personal lot in life really makes sense. And if you can move to a point beyond both gratitude and reproach. Because in recent years, I seem to be getting something like that... Which must sound strange. But then my situation is strange!

In the past, I've also experienced the gratitude. However, even though I've come to terms now with the disease mentally/spiritually, I find that in the presence of constant and worsening pain - into my twelfth year - that the global sense of gratitude isn't there. (It isn't even possible to be physically comfortable anymore. Also, the functional limitations have become pretty extreme.)

For me, the sense of gratitude was always connected to a "good to be alive feeling." And that's hard to get when your body is at this point.

Whatever this disease is - the label is "Undifferentiated Connective Tissue Disease," but "undifferentiated" basically means they don't know what it is - it's progressive. It's only gone in one direction for twelve years. And for everything I went through mentally, including turning a decisive corner several years ago, the disease has never looked back!

Also remarkable to me was that a negative mental state never correlated to any sort of acceleration or worsening of symptoms. So I think that "body/mind connection" can be more or less significant, depending on what you've got.

By  Paul, at 4:36 PM  

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