As we prepare for Spring, we tend towards a feeling of gratitude for the warmer weather, longer days and, of course, sunshine! This is why Spring should be dubbed the “Thanksgiving of April”. (If we have Christmas in July, then we can have Thanksgiving in April, right?) The world focuses on “thankfulness” and gratitude in November but it is really a value we should maintain every day of the year.
The practice of gratitude is important for everyone but especially for those of us going through a struggle—from infertility, to chronic pain to relationship difficulties—gratitude is the one thing we can control. So many of us have a hard time dealing with the lack of control in life and truth be told, there are so few things that anyone can truly control. But to be grateful helps the mind shift from negative to neutral; from overwhelm to presence. To be grateful is not to minimize the experience or to turn “bad” things into “good”. (Gratitude is NOT blind positivity) Rather, gratitude is an acknowledgment of things that we often take for granted—eyes that allow us to see, legs that allow us to run, fresh air in our lungs, music we love, people we love, the gift of waking up in the morning and so on. To be grateful for such things despite our struggle transforms our perspective into a more tenable reality. Gratitude is the “yin” to hardship’s “yang” and as Taoist theory has explained for thousands of years, life is balance!
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