GRATITUDE AS A PRACTICE
"True happiness is to enjoy the present, without anxious dependence upon the future, not to amuse ourselves with either hopes or fears but to rest satisfied with what we have, which is sufficient, for he that is so wants nothing. The greatest blessings of mankind are within us and within our reach. A wise man is content with his lot, whatever it may be, without wishing for what he has not.
Seneca [Lucious Amnaeus Seneca; ca 4 BC – 65 AD, Roman Stoic Philospher]
MEANINGS IN THE TITLE
Gratitude is the quality or feeling of being thankful and appreciative of the kindness or benefits received. Gratitude involves recognizing and acknowledging the positive aspects of life, people, and experiences.
Positive means the presence or possession of features or qualities rather than their absence: health, peace, wisdom, prosperity, love, and happiness.
Practice involves consistent effort, repetition, and focus over time to achieve a desired goal or improvement in a particular area, whether physical, mental, emotional, or spiritual. In my experience, the practice of gratitude impacts all of these elements.
Practice is crucial for areas of weakness. Practice builds skill, confidence, and mastery through repetition and refinement. When you are weak in something, your brain and body don't have the knowledge, muscle strength, or neural pathways needed to perform effectively.
Until I became an elder, gratitude hadn't been understood as a principal catalyst for well-being, equanimity, self-understanding, and contentment. Now I know.
MY PRACTICE OF GRATITUDE
For me, beginning a practice is best done daily. Adding something I hadn't done before takes time and effort. To do something unnatural for me, to practice something unfamiliar, I need structures to keep my attention and intention on doing the practice.
Reminders, prompts that can't be overlooked or ignored. Sticky notes on the computer. A scorecard of some kind. PRACTICE GRADITUDE in caps at the top of each day's schedule on my Google calendar.
Part of my reluctance was my gratitude practice surfaced thoughts and feelings that blocked gratitude's occurrence. These thoughts never go away. Transforming how I related to these thoughts and feelings allowed gratitude to occur.
WHAT I DIDN'T HAVE
Identifying those thoughts and feelings that were weak or vacant and needed for gratitude became evident when I spent time with authentic elders.
Elders were genuinely grateful for their lives and life itself. They spoke and listened with generosity and appreciativeness. They lived with and inside thankfulness. They easily laughed about themselves and with others.
The gratitude embodied by elders supplied qualities and abilities I wanted: grace, gratefulness, honor, indebtedness, and thankfulness.
Being with elders made it painfully obvious what was blocking and tackling gratitude. Since generating insights and revelations is a function of contrast. I needed the "other," I needed elders, to see what was missing for me to be grateful.
TAKEAWAYS
Here's what I took away when I was with elders. They exhibited:
Emotional Well-being: They were happy, joyful, and contented.
Relationships: They appreciated people. Seemed that judgment or being 'right' didn't cloud relationships. Empathy, love, understanding, respect, and humor were strongly present.
Spiritual Growth: In some way, they were intertwined with spiritual and philosophical beliefs that gave them a sense of higher purpose while connecting to something greater than themselves.
So, to gain these qualities, I needed to uncover gratitude since it is an internal phenomenon. I needed to find out those unexamined internal interferences that were in my way of being grateful.
ON EXAMINATION
My gratitude, although innate, was well-shielded. My practice uncovered what stopped me from being thankful and appreciative.
My particular practice was based on language. So, my first and most immediate step was to pay attention to the words coming out of my mouth, the words of my internal dialogue, and the reactions of others around me.?
I began to notice the construct of my sentences, tone of voice, and feelings as I spoke.
Practice, any practice, has you pay attention. Practice makes you conscious of what and why you are practicing.
If I didn't get this handled, it was apparent my current path of growing old would put me on the opposite side of gratitude, the dark, cold path of ingratitude and resentment, where I was beginning to spend lot of time.
So, ingratitude and resentment became a good place to start my practice.
GETTING CONSCIOUS
I dove into how ingratitude and resentment occurred for and in me. Ingratitude and resentment were dominant in subtle, nuanced, but everpresent ways. But after a while, my practice exposed the underbelly of ingratitude and resentment.
Here's what I uncovered:
Resentment harbored negative thoughts and emotions: bitterness, anger, jealousy, and envy.
Resentment came with destructive feelings - anger, irritation, and spite.
Resentment blocked my ability to acknowledge and appreciate.
Ingratitude and resentment were advancing me down the well-worn cultural path of "older," which makes life miserable, shortens lifespan, and, I and many others assert, decreases healthspan.?
When I was resentful, I walked around feeling a kind of entitlement. Being entitled narrowed my perception that life, institutions, and people –weren't delivering what I was "owed." I felt "shortchanged."
When I was resentful, I instantly went into comparison. Comparing myself to others invariably led to feelings of inadequacy.
And when I listened to myself when entitled, I could hear my tone, words, and underlying meaning– sarcastic, skeptical, caustic, and aloof.
I also noticed entitlement always came with unrealistic expectations. Unfulfilled expectations invariably lead to being upset.
And under the upset was the unexamined and ever-present thought stream of "I deserve."
"I deserve to have this."
"I don't deserve to be treated this way."
"I deserve to be seen in this way.
"I don't deserve to have this problem."
"I deserve better than she, him or them."
As I drilled down even further through resentment, ingratitude, "I deserve," and entitlement, I saw a "modal" verb every time. A modal verb has no end. You can't put an "s" or a "d" on it. When it comes to gratitude, that verb is "should."
Should is one of these modal verbs. Should has no ending.
Should is a word used to indicate obligation, duty, or correctness when criticizing someone's actions. But in this case, someone else's actions often turned out to be me.
MY CONCLUSIONS:
Should is the language of the self-critic.
Should is one of the most significant causes of suffering.
Should, or its brother, " shouldn't," are final judgments. Nothing else is possible.
Should is the way the ego keeps you prisoner.
Growing old should look "like this" is cultural abuse.
Should makes you right, and them, she, him, or it wrong.
Should only occurs in the past or the future but never in the present moment.
Should is not a word that is thought, spoken, or heard in gratitude.
Noticing how I "should" all over myself and much of the world around me led to resentment, ingratitude, and entitlement.
These "should's" didn't go away. But as I practiced, they became short-term guests, not permanent residents.
So, the asset gained from my gratitude practice is knowing how to keep "should" out of the building, which allows more gratitude into the building.
GRATITUDE
by Mary Olive
What did you notice?
The dew-snail; the low-flying sparrow; the bat, on the wind, in the dark; big-chested geese, in the V of sleekest performance; the soft toad, patient in the hot sand; the sweet-hungry ants; the uproar of mice in the empty house; the tin music of the cricket's body; the blouse of the goldenrod.
What did you hear?
The thrush greeting the morning; the little bluebirds in their hot box; the salty talk of the wren, then the deep cup of the hour of silence.
When did you admire?
The oaks, letting down their dark and hairy fruit; the carrot, rising in its elongated waist; the onion, sheet after sheet, curved inward to the pale green wand; at the end of summer the brassy dust, the almost liquid beauty of the flowers; then the ferns, scrawned black by the frost.
What astonished you?
The swallows making their dip and turn over the water.
What would you like to see again?
My dog: her energy and exuberance, her willingness, her language beyond all nimbleness of tongue, her recklessness, her loyalty, her sweetness, her strong legs, her curled black lip, her snap.
What was most tender?
Queen Anne's lace, with its parsnip root; the everlasting in its bonnets of wool; the kinks and turns of the tupelo's body; the tall, blank banks of sand; the clam, clamped down.
What was most wonderful?
The sea, and its wide shoulders; the sea and its triangles; the sea lying back on its long athlete's spine.
What did you think was happening?
The green beast of the hummingbird; the eye of the pond; the wet face of the lily; the bright, puckered knee of the broken oak; the red tulip of the fox's mouth; the up-swing, the down-pour, the frayed sleeve of the first snow— so the gods shake us from our sleep.
"Dr. Cooper's book, Older to Elder, is an important plea for attention and intention. Life moves fast and there is great importance in wisely using the time we have to gain and share the best of experience and wisdom as we enact the significant transition from older to elder in this modern age. Marc clearly understands that the experiences and wisdom we've accrued are an incredibly needed asset in our world today."
-?????? Ed Sancious
Artist. Poet. Teacher
Purchase the book here .