Have you ever had one of those trips to the grocery store? You know the kind…you have to use the huge monster size shopping cart because it has the big plastic seats that your preschooler wants to sit in, then the first two carts you try have broken seat belts, and when you finally find a cart that has working seat belts and get everyone buckled in, the back left wheel sticks when you push it and you have to lift the front up in the air to make it turn. Throw in a tantrum over a box of animal crackers and the unexplained absence of lettuce at the store (which means you’ll have to go to another store), and things can feel pretty awful.
My friend recently had one of those grocery store trips. On her way to her car, she put this picture on Instagram:
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She said: “After a particularly challenging grocery store trip with these two and that stupid enormous cart, I walked outside to the beautiful evening light and decided to not be stressed but be thankful I had a cart full of food for my family.
Take that, Bad Day.”
Source: Lori Allen Photography |
What she said made me really think. How often do I let difficult circumstances keep me from being grateful for what is right in front of me?
We often think of gratitude as the feeling of being thankful. Feeling thankful is popular this time of year- it even has its own national holiday. Although many of us will spend Thankgiving on the road or between the kitchen, the table, and the sofa, it’s not actually a day dedicated to traveling and eating and watching football. We’re supposed to feel thankful.
But what if we don’t feel thankful? What if this Thanksgiving is not a picture-perfect bunch of quietly smiling people gathered calmly together around an abundant table?
We just had a natural disaster on the East Coast of a magnitude rarely seen. Some have lost their homes. Some have lost loved ones. For some of us, things are wrong in smaller ways. Maybe we’re struggling financially, emotionally, spiritually or physically. Maybe things are just harder than last year. Whatever the reason, feeling thankful might be harder than it sounds.
What if Thanksgiving comes and we just can’t do it?
We can do it. We can, because gratitude is so much more than feeling thankful. Gratitude is a choice. Not a feeling. Not an overwhelming sense that all is right with the world. In fact, gratitude in the face of pain, suffering and adversity is the bravest choice you can make. Maybe you aren’t used to thinking of gratitude as a choice? Well, it is a choice. A powerful one.
Gratitude is a deliberate decision. Gratitude is looking around, seeing things are a mess, and deciding to say “thanks” anyway. Gratitude is choosing to accept that in all the darkness around us, we can still find a light…and we can say “thank you” for it, no matter how small it is.
When I was put on bed rest for 12 weeks the summer before our twins were born, I struggled to find the positive side of things. I challenged myself to write down at least one thing each day that was positive. The list varied greatly. Some days had lots of things written down. Some days had almost nothing, and what they did have sounded kind of negative (i.e., at least I don’t have to see that doctor again for two weeks!). I didn’t do a perfect job. Still, I know that the act of writing something down each day refocused me on the light at the end of the tunnel. It reminded me that there are always things for which I can choose to be grateful, even if they are small.
We all need practice at new things, and choosing to be grateful is no exception. As Thanksgiving approaches, I invite you to practice gratitude each day in some small way. It can be a tiny thing (I’m glad my toothbrush is purple) or something for someone else (I’m glad her mother is getting better). It can even be about the weather (Well, at least it isn’t raining!). Then, find your own way to express it. Write it on a tiny slip of paper and keep it in a pretty box, or start a list on your bathroom mirror. Draw it in your sketchbook or take a photo with your phone. Join the challenge on Facebook and post something each day there if you want to make your practice public.
Choosing to be grateful every day is choosing to be courageous, to find hope in these difficult times. And if you make that choice every day, the practice can change you. When you notice little things, when you practice every single day, gratitude becomes natural. And by the time Thanksgiving Day comes, you won’t have to remind yourself to feel grateful.
It will already be a way of life.
Abbey Dupuy is a stay-at-home parent to a preschooler and one-year-old twins. She writes about practicing gratitude and learning to be a little easier on herself through the ups and downs of life at www.survivingourblessings.com. To keep her sanity, she enjoys running, fiber arts, baking, and going places that offer free refills on coffee or Diet Coke.