Trying Something New

Image from www.ordinarycourage.com

For some reason, I have always been hesitant when it came to things like having a “gratitude journal” or cultivating an “attitude of gratitude”. Don’t get me wrong…I love the idea of gratitude and I do try to stay mindful of things for which to be grateful. But formalizing it in any way always seemed a bit contrived (any time I have tried to do it for myself anyways).

Part of it I think is feeling as if I am put on the spot to come up with something “meaningful” and that I might be judged for what I come up with. And part of it is feeling cliche…”I am grateful for my kids’ laughter”…well, yeah. Of course I am. Duh. Who wouldn’t be.

Obviously there is a lot of judgement there on my part which I think warrants a bit of thinking about. I am guessing from my resistance that there is something deeper at play.

This seems to be coming to the forefront a bit lately as I am becoming more and more aware of how, despite all the gifts I know I have, I seem to be living my life as if I am going to lose most or all of it any day now. Not consciously, but rather as a very deep underlying worry of which I am, at most times, not even aware. But the more that I focus on being mindful, the more that am starting to recognize it.

Living a life founded on the assumption of scarcity vs. one founded on the assumption of abundance is something that keeps coming up in my reading. Basically it is a choice…by assuming and trusting that there is “enough” and that I am “enough,” just as I am, I can accept myself and the world as it is. Not trusting leads to the feeling of always having to stay on top of things, feeling as if they are going to fall apart at any minute. Feeling that everything is up to me. I have gotten to the point where that is just too exhausting. And it actually makes no sense as I am not all powerful nor do I have control over everything (or even most things for that matter).

One of the suggestions Brene Brown talks about in her book The Gifts of Imperfection is, yes, starting a gratitude practice. Because it is not just enough to think about being grateful, but rather in order to overcome the anxiety and fear which manifests itself as scarcity, we need to practice gratitude.

I have seen over the past several years how having a practice makes all the difference. It allows me to get out of my head and only then can changes occur. So I am going to give one of her suggestions a try…on each Friday I am going to do a TGIF post where I talk about what I am Trusting, what I am Grateful for, and what Inspires me.

Have no idea how it will go or how good I will be at posting about it on a regular basis, but I figure I have nothing to loose.

Wish me luck.