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Stories of Gratitude: The Grateful Heart
Thanksgiving, Nov 26, 2007
Bethanne Jacobson
We
all just experienced the traditional North American Thanksgiving, when we
gathered with family and friends to give thanks for the many blessings we
enjoy. For many, however,
somewhere along the way, the meaning has been lost.
It has become simply another day for huge meals, dinner parties,
get-togethers, reunions, and football.
What comes to mind when you think of Thanksgiving?
Do you picture a time of thankfulness, or is it merely one of
eating, partying, and watching parades and football?
Our
first president, George Washington declared the first National
Thanksgiving Proclamation in 1789, so that we could thank God for
affording us an opportunity to peaceably establish a form of government
for our safety and happiness and for the civil and religious liberty with
which are blessed… . Is that
what we think about when we think of Thanksgiving?
Are we indeed thankful for all that we have or do we take our
riches for granted? Do
we even begin to think about being grateful and expressing gratitude?
When I think of Thanksgiving, or Turkey Day as it is often fondly
called, I have childhood memories of history lessons and the reenactment
the first Thanksgiving. We all
dressed up as pilgrims and Native Americans and shared the harvest.
I am not really sure, that as a child, I ever thought about being
thankful and expressing my gratitude. Yes, there was a “blessing at
dinner”. You know the
one….. God is great, God is
good, now we thank him for our food, Amen. But,
it was just something that was said. I
was most likely too busy kicking my brother under the table to listen or
even understand what the prayer was really about.
For our most recent family Thanksgiving, we ask our grandchildren
what they were thankful for and only one was able to quickly say something
(family) the others stared with shock and eyes wide open that we were
asking such a question. As
I got older, Thanksgiving became a time when I had to choose, or sometimes
not choose, where I would go and have Thanksgiving dinner.
And sometimes, when the decision would make someone unhappy, I
would eat two dinners! It’s
hard to now even imagine eating that much food at one meal, let alone two
times!
I
now look at Thanksgiving in a much different light, and I am thankful for
the experiences that have brought me to a place of looking at all I have
and all I have become with a sense of gratitude. This
change has come from experiences that have been joyful, and it has come
from experiences of loss and disappointment.
When I achieved my goal of becoming a Ph.D. psychologist, I could
not have remembered a happier time. I
was indeed grateful and felt the world had opened up to me.
Soon after, when our son was killed, the world again closed and
gratefulness was no where to be found.
This fellowship, my work colleagues, and friends became central to
the healing process and I found a sense of gratitude.
With time, this loss became a way for me to help others who had
experienced similar pain. And,
I was once again able to find joy that I could help them work through
their pain.
A
somewhat different sense of gratitude has come from observing our Karen
families and the “village” they have created as they try to make sense
out of this new country and their new home.
There appears to be an unspoken sense of sharing and caring for
each other, that is not easily found in our culture.
I now have a better understanding of what Hilary Clinton means when
she says it takes a village to raise a child.
It is these experiences, as well as many others, that have allowed
me to search my spirit within to find a new sense of gratitude for all
that I have been given.
Today
I would like to have each of you consider how you might cultivate that
gratefulness and a sense of gratitude in your everyday lives.
How can we look to each day with a grateful heart and truly be
thankful for what we have and to not be sorrowful over those things that
are not “quite right”. Shortly,
I will invite each of you to share gifts of gratitude, thankfulness, or
appreciation with each other. It
is hoped that through expressing your own gratitude, you will open others
up to unfound joy and happiness that will enrich their lives.
Questions you might ask yourself include…….
What is it that I take for granted?
Who have been my teachers, my mentors, my role models?
And, how can I express gratitude in my everyday life?
Sue
Bender, author of Everyday Sacred and Plain and Simple,
describes gratitude as “the act of making everyday sacred”.
“Expressing gratitude is a gift to the giver”.
Robert Emmons, professor of psychology at the University of
California, Davis is one of the foremost authorities on the topic of
gratitude. He believes that
there is a whole cluster of characteristics that seem to go together – things
like optimism, hope, humility, gratitude, and happiness.
Some of this may be genetically determined, and some of it is based
on early childhood experiences and positive relationships with other
people. Very little of it, interestingly, seems to depend upon
circumstances. It is about how
we learn to frame life experiences, both good and bad.
So, there’s the cluster of positive characteristics that were
mentioned (i.e. optimism, hope, gratitude, and happiness), but there’s
another set of characteristics that block the positive ones.
For example, a sense of entitlement, or deservingness, often blocks
the recognition that other people might be responsible for the good things
that happen to us. If I took
credit for all the good things that have happened to me (i.e. obtaining my
doctoral degree) it would be hard to feel a sense of indebtedness or sense
of gratefulness in life. No
matter how often people say things like, “you worked so hard”, or
“it takes a lot of strength to go back to school”, I don’t hesitate
to acknowledge the support of my family, Jake, and the wonderful mentors I
had along the way. Other
people were definitely a part of my success.
And I have to believe that each of you have experienced success,
happiness, and gratitude because of other people that have entered your
lives.
Emmons
also holds a belief that feelings of gratitude are really anchored in
spirituality, and I am beginning to understand what he meant, for it is
through spirituality that we allow ourselves to acknowledge where things
come from and the people to whom we are indebted.
Being grateful then is a choice we make. It
becomes a choice to look at things (both past and present) in an
alternative way. It becomes a
choice to appreciate where we have come from, and to look at how we want
to respond to situations in our life. And it really becomes an attitude,
an attitude of gratitude, that makes life better for ourselves and for
other people who we interact with on a regular basis.
When things go well, gratitude enables us to savor things going
well. When things go poorly,
gratitude enables us to get over those situations and to realize they are
temporary.
So,
if gratitude is about attitude, and it is in a sense, a spiritual choice,
how do we begin to open ourselves up to grateful experiences?
First, it is a recognition that you don’t have to be stuck for
life with the mental attitudes you adopted in early childhood.
All of us are free to change our minds.
As we change our minds and our thoughts, our experiences will also
change. The longer I live, the
more I realize that an attitude of gratitude is the key to living in a
spirit of joyful expectation. It
is freeing to know that I have that power.
Something I ask many of my clients to do when they are depressed or
very negative is to imagine an experiment involving two people.
One is asked to spend ten minutes each morning and each evening
expressing gratitude, while the other is asked to spend ten minutes each
morning and each evening practicing complaining and being negative.
The second person says things like, “I hate my job.
I can’t stand living in New Bern
My spouse doesn’t do anything to support me.
Why do bad things keep happening to me?
No one ever asks me to go to lunch”.
The first person is saying things like “I am so thankful I have
this job, there are so many people who can’t work.
Today was a gorgeous day, it’s raining, but we really need the
rain. I am grateful I have my
health”. Let’s say they do
this “experiment” for 1 year. It
is absolutely guaranteed that at the end of the year the person who
practiced complaining will have deeply reaffirmed all the negative stuff
rather than having let it go, while the one who was more positive and
practiced gratitude will be a very grateful person.
I’m sure we all know negative people.
They become someone we don’t want to be around, they rarely
accept goodness in or from others, and it is probable that the negative
person lives a life of isolation and they become unable to respond in a
healthy way to others in his/her environment.
Something for you to consider is that it is probably difficult to
feel both positive emotion of being thankful and a negative emotion, such
as fear or anger, at the same time. I
reflect back on Sydney’s most recent talk when he spoke of the
importance of care and compassion (very positive emotions).
Gratitude gives birth to these same emotions and can result in the
positive feelings of love, compassion, care, joy, and hope….leaving the
others (fear, anger, bitterness) to melt away.
The last several
years of my life have resulted in dramatic spiritual growth and fostered a
sense of gratitude. My
“teachers” have been colleagues, clients, friends, my spouse, my
children, the Karen, and this fellowship. It has come through both the
tragic and the joyous, the gain of new friendships and the loss of old
ones. I have become aware of
and connected to messages once given by mentors that were locked away and
not fully understood. I have
been touched by the Spirit of Life workshop and those who give freely of
themselves each time we meet. Perhaps
it is about age, about maturation, or perhaps it is about reaching a point
in my life where I can slow down and not strive for more and more and
more. I am not any longer
overly concerned that my hair is greyer, that I can’t lose those extra
pounds, or that I will never be the published academic that was once my
criterion for success.
M.J.
Ryan, author of Attitudes of Gratitude, expresses a belief that to
experience gratitude, you have to be aware that you’ve been given
something. It cannot exist if
you don’t recognize that you have received a gift, and it can’t exist
if you don’t feel worthy of getting a gift.
Soon our fellowship will receive the gift of a new home. Our
monetary gifts have made this possible.
The work of the core team, and in particular our president Gerry
Mackle, have made it possible. It
is Gerry who checks in on the contractors on a daily basis, to ensure
progress is being made. While
at the same time he transports several of the Karen back and forth to the
work site which has accelerated the process of the renovation.
He has done this with humility and without recognition, but done it
because it needs to get done! He
is fully involved and this gift of time and energy is something we should
all, each one of use, be grateful for.
By
virtue of being alive, we receive gifts all the time – if only for a new
day. My happiness and
gratitude is about being able to witness beautiful sunrises, being able to
sit quietly on water and hear the voices of the birds, feeling that I have
made a difference with that most difficult client, and hearing the stories
of the antics of Paw Eh Thaw (the middle child of our Karen family) as she
marches full force into what ever moves her.
The sunrises allow me to forget the fear of the hurricane yet to
come. The sound of the birds
on the water allow me to forget my fear of the water for a while, and to
recognize the comfort and calm it can bring.
The strength of my clients and their willingness to change allows
me to forget my initial fears that I might not always succeed in helping
someone. The love and
responsiveness of the Karen families, who have come from such a difficult
situation, brings me hope that we can overcome most any obstacle and to
recognize how the very small things can make a difference.
So, part of gratitude is about perception that these are indeed
gifts we have given.
Please don’t hear
me saying that you “should” always be grateful.
Should is a word that carries with it guilt and negative emotion.
I recognize there are times when it is impossible for you to feel
grateful for anything, no matter how hard you try.
And believe me, I have had my share! Instead,
I am encouraging you to think about the attitude you carry with you day
after day after day. I want to
encourage us all to open our hearts and express gratitude as much as we
can and reflect on experiences for which you invite a sense of
gratitude.
I
now invite you to express your gratitude.
I invite you to briefly share your stories of gratitude that have
made this year better than the last, and the hope that the next will be
even better. Let us remember
when our parents disciplined us, but also how they nurtured us.
Too often, we remember the rivalries with siblings, but forget how
they challenged and taught us. We
remember how we earned our grades while forgetting from whom we learned.
We might remember how well we competed, yet we forgot what we
learned from the rivalry. We
remember that their grass was always greener.
We forgot why our grass got greener.
We remember that our life was like a growing vine, yet we forgot
the posts and training wires on which we grew.
Let us remember that which we forgot and be grateful. I invite you
to stand and remember and to take time to express your gratitude!
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