What’s your favorite color? Do you ever say gray? Most people choose blue, or green, and according to this article, color choices can be influenced by age and gender, too. Funny enough, gray isn’t even referenced in that article, so there you go. For many, gray is for energy-less, lackluster days. Gray is for grief, surrounded by “meh”, blasé, gloomy, or indifference. But what if I told you gray can hold and create space for goodness and gratitude?
I was 27 years old when I realized I had monsters in my head. No, I’m not schizophrenic, but I had a raging case of negative self-talk, shame, self judgement and self hatred for years. When you grow up with shame, no one tells you that it’s wrong. No one tells you that you don’t need it, not in the way it debilitates and cripples you, preventing you to become or recognize the whole and beautiful person you already are.
Our practice of inauthenticity began when we were children. We learned from adults, teachers, parents to behave a certain way at certain times, many times despite how we truly feel, or else be punished and shamed. In adolescence, we did what we could to fit in and find belonging. We may have even done things we were certainly not proud of. Even now, years and experiences later, we all shape-shift and deviate from our most authentic selves.
Yesterday, in the quiet stillness of early morning, I stood in the darkness before four lit candles and surrendered. I hunger for silence, the need to gaze inward and sit with an empty cup. Not knowing, not wanting, not fearing, not hoping, not fixing.
Just being, listening, feeling. Surrender is not giving up, it’s about letting in and receiving the gifts we were born to receive. We can receive nothing as long as think we can control everything, as long as we think don’t have enough, or we’ve been cheated in some way.
Surrender into silence, unlock, listen and receive. Forgiveness, compassion, gratitude are right there waiting to be let in.
Learn more about how to start your own gratitude practice in our guide.
Gratitude is to...
Live in a way that nurtures the magic of any given moment.
Live in a way that calls attention to connection--to each other, to community.
Live in a way that offers to leave something or someone better than how they were found.
Live in a way that encourages compassion, not possession, or obsession, nor perfection or hate, or fear, power or control.
Live in a way that reminds you how lucky you are to wake up, to have friendships, to dance, to laugh, and cry, to hug, to eat cake or drink tea, to have a home or a job.
Live in a way that keeps you humble, forgiving, present, and awake.
Learn more about how to start your own gratitude practice in our guide.
Confession. I don’t exercise regularly. I can curse like a truck driver. I don’t meditate, I hate to clean and I am not an inspired cook. I order Domino’s pizza, and I eat way too much chocolate every day. The truth is, I deplore the mask of perfection. DEPLORE it. Give me the real, beautifully messy and wild, out-of-the-box, spontaneous, passionately authentic person and I’ll show you someone who lives their truth, someone who’s a breath of fresh air. A person who’s not afraid to say “please forgive me but I can’t”, “I effed up”, “I don’t know”, and “I forgot”.
Now, more than ever, we need to remember WHY we are grateful. It's almost too much to bear, the collective grief happening everywhere I look. Some days the sorrow is too deep to muster the energy to write a brand new gratitude. So I don't. I accept the state of where I am and instead, borrow a gratitude from last year. I grab a used Pockitude journal, open randomly and read.
The memories and gratitudes collected in these journals reminds me that joy still sits with me, and can co-exist in consciousness with grief, and anger, the madness in this world. The act of taking the time to read and remember is a gratitude itself, and a form of self care. Today, I am grateful for the treasure trove of memories written permanently in these journals. August 2017: Blooming sunflowers in the community gardens. Why? Because I am reminded to turn my face to the sun and bloom.
A gift for readers and followers, enjoy a 10% discount code at checkout with Promo code: SUNFLOWERS (expires first day of Spring March 20) --> www.pockitudes.com/shop/
Learn more about how to start your own gratitude practice in our guide.
You have permission. Permission to not get it right today. Permission to not be perfect. Permission to not have all the answers. Permission to grieve, for as long as you need. You have permission to accept your whole self, even the squishy, aging parts, the parts you have not forgiven, the parts you’re afraid to acknowledge or see. You have permission to do nothing for an entire day, without guilt, without feeling like you wasted time.
Why write gratitudes? Isn’t just saying thank you enough or “I’m grateful” enough?
Yes. And no. How many times have the words been so automatic it’s lost its meaning? How many times have we said “Yes I’m grateful” in our minds, but the full feeling of gratitude didn’t quite make it to our heart, body and soul. When we truly understand the benefits of gratitude, when we capture a moment as the best thing ever, right here right now, you can feel it ripple through your body and electrify your bones. Gratitude can easily become automation, perhaps even a chore, perhaps even resented.
I stopped telling my kids that all I want for them is to be happy. Happy is great, happy has been the long held standard for a satisfactory life. As long as we are happy, all is well. I call BS on that. I’ve been happy plenty of times, and I love it when I’m happy, but happy is fleeting, and like most wonderful things, aren’t meant to last. I want to teach my kids what to do when happy isn’t available, when things just suck and we are trying to survive a mess of a day. What I tell them is Exhale, and Thank you.
There are all kinds of breathing techniques to help anxiety, or anger, but for me, it’s the exhale I long for. The extended, exaggerated, vocal exhale that releases me. We do it subconsciously with sighs, a semi-muted expression of discomfort. Forget the sighs. Bring on the guttural flow of carbon dioxide. Exhale the nasty, exhale the yuck, exhale the sad madness of it all. And then, and here’s where it really counts-- say “thank you”.
Thank you sun, thank you breath, thank you end of the day, thank you pillow, thank you stars, thank you sunset. Thank you for life lived another day. Thank you for reminding me that if I can make it through days without happy, I can make it through anything. Gratitude is the life preserver that keeps us above the water, keeps us moving, just long enough until happy circles back around again.
Learn more about how to start your own gratitude practice in our guide.
How? How do you pause to be grateful when the indignation to just brood feels better? There’s no stifling to be done here. I’d rather scream until my lungs are inside out before finding something to be grateful for at this moment. I’d rather cry long heaves of breath and spittle before disengaging this powerful urge to plant these sorrows at my feet and wail. But….I have been here before.
