I have been posting for eleven (11) months now, 160 posts to date, as I walk and discover my own pathway to gratitude so I want to pause and reflect upon the meanings beneath my messages to you. First, living in a State of Gratitude is not always easy and takes being in a State of Mindfulness I would say.
I prefer to be mindful when I blog about gratitude. Intellectually, it feels the best!
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Gratitude is an emotion. Poor health creates strong emotions and fears. Life and death decisions are emotional events in our lives. Yesterday, I experienced “life” once again after several weeks of believing I might be dying this time.
Back in 2017, without warning, I experienced breast, ovarian, and peritoneal cancers. I had multiple surgeries and treatments. Yesterday, we expected that I had lung cancer. I always say I am the sickest healthy person you might ever meet. Yet, for 4.5 years I have been blessed with good health and no recurrences. Yesterday, we decided my lung nodules will be followed… no invasive diagnostic procedures just yet. Yeah!
These past, but sudden events in my life drove me to “Gratitude”.
I am so grateful that I am alive and healthy, but I sometimes have survivor’s guilt as I know many people who have not been as fortunate as I, and have already lost their life.
So, I ask myself… how may I help? What might I say to you to cause you to be positive instead of scared to death, miserable, and so often in pain?
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When I began my journey to gratitude, it seemed easy to find examples of kind acts by people, fun pet moments, memorable acts of generosity between individuals, and so forth, but as this pandemic drags on I am observing more stress, more anger and frustration, greater impatience, visible sadness, signs of depression, instances of hopelessness, and fits of intolerance all around me. It is hard to stay grateful each and every day when you see and hear stories of death and dying, fights on airplanes and in shops over wearing or not wearing masks, lack of clarity on what will happen when school begins again, red States and blue States, and political disagreements.
How in the world does one stay grateful and joyful when there seems to be pain and sadness all around?
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Gratitude Squared 