The Power of Gratitude

As I've mentioned once or twice before, alcoholism, addiction, depression, and probably all mental illnesses are mind-narrowing conditions. My experience has been that when I'm in the depths of my illness, the world turns gray and looks very bleak. Where my head goes when I'm not in recovery is that there are only two options for me - drink myself to death or kill myself by some other method. The brain is a resilient organ; however, it doesn't spring back to healthy life after years of less-than-optimal functioning. This means that even after I stop drinking, and even after I get on anti-depressant medication, the world still looks bleak to me, and I still have to deal with frequent feelings of hopelessness and despair. This is what makes early recovery so challenging - often, we feel worse before we begin to feel better. If you are reading this and don't have an addiction or other mental health concern, try this - sit down on a comfy sofa with your right foot underneath your left buttock. Watch TV or read a book for a half-hour. When a half-hour is up, stand up. Your right foot has probably fallen asleep, and is tingly and maybe sore upon standing. It's uncomfortable, and you might have trouble walking or even standing. This is what happens to the brain with mental illness and/or addiction - the brain is your right foot, and your left buttock is active addiction or mental illness. Even though the offending agent (your butt) has been lifted from the brain (your foot), your foot is still feeling the effects. And, unfortunately, it can take the brain much longer to recover than it does your foot.

So what's the point? Well, the point is that removing the major symptom(s) of our distress does not cure us. We have to consciously help the brain along. Back to my experience:

I had the advantage when I began recovery 3 years ago of knowing the tools of recovery. Life did look bleak when I began recovery - I didn't see many options for myself. I knew I needed to again practice gratitude, and I started to practice gratitude again by keeping a gratitude journal. Now, it is important to note here that I wasn't feeling very grateful. One does not need to be grateful to begin to practice gratitude. So, in my gratitude journal, I wrote down the things I had that I thought most other people were grateful for, but for which I was not yet grateful.  I wrote:

• I am grateful that I am alive.
• I am grateful that I am breathing.
• I am grateful that I am sober.
• I am grateful that I have a roof over my head.
• I am grateful that I am healthy.

And each day I would endeavor to expand this list. Note that there aren't any qualifiers - for instance, the roof over my head belonged to the Salvation Army. It's still a roof, and better than the tree I had been sleeping under! So, I started with those 5 things and I began to expand, and I gradually found more and more for which to be grateful. I got up into my head and consciously pushed my narrowed walls of perception.

Eventually I began to feel grateful. When good things happen to us, we naturally feel good! Duh! My part in this is that I don't wait for the good, I look for the good. That's practicing gratitude. Additionally, I get to define what is good! Say, for instance, I get run over by a car. I get rushed to the hospital, where an angel in scrubs gives me the most compassionate, loving care I've ever experienced, and we fall in love. I'm going to be grateful that I got run over by that car, because that event was the 'vehicle' for me meeting the love of my life. Now, that's just a fictitious example. But the fact is that one event leads to another event which leads to another event, all culminating in a life. If I can look at the events in my life with gratitude, I'll have a life for which I'm grateful.

It's important to allow the feelings of gratitude to come, because feelings are really what give our gratitude power. And, once I understand this, I can get back in the helm and direct my gratitude to determine how my day is going to be - I can be grateful in advance for the good things that are coming my way today!

The real deal is this: I (we) live in an abundant Universe, an abundant world. Blessings abound - they are all around us! But if I don't have my mind, and eventually my feelings, attuned to this abundance, I'll never see it. I'll never experience it.

Let's take health, for example. Say that I'm 95% healthy, but I have allergies, so when the weather is a certain way I'm sneezing and wheezing like I have a cold. Anything that is less than optimal health-wise grabs my complete attention. Even though having allergies detracts in a minor way from my health (my heart rate, bp, breathing, etc. are all normal), it can be a major event for me. So, when something, like allergies or a minor cold come up, I don't ignore that this is happening, but I do note at the same time that I'm still functioning pretty well. It lessens the amount of suffering for me, and increases my gratitude. What I focus on increases.

So the power of gratitude is just that - I get to create my own experience, my own reality, by learning to look at what is in a way that creates good, rather than creating more of the stuff I don't want. After I got my own place in recovery, I lived there for over a year. It was a rathole - insect and addict infested, it was cramped, it was unpleasant, it was nasty-dirty, and I was extremely grateful for it. I was grateful that I was housed, I was grateful that I was paying for it, I was grateful that I was getting stronger and building character, I was grateful it was close to downtown, etc. Eventually I got a better place, for which I was grateful, and then I got my present 2 bedroom spacious apartment with my own bathroom and with a lovely park and a river for a backyard. I'm fairly certain that if I had focused on the rattiness of the rathole in which I originally lived, I'd still be living in a similar position today. I kept looking for the good, and I found it.

I'm very grateful for a number of things right now in this moment - I'm grateful for the awareness of the power I possess to lead a good life; I'm grateful that I lived long enough to begin to discover the power within me, and I'm grateful for the desire and ability to share my life with others. 

Namasté, 

Ken