This blog is outlined with my personal experience of gratitude, the current state of Thanksgiving celebration (admittingly with sarcasm and a bent toward vegetarianism), and a practical approach to implementing gratitude as a daily practice with a goal of gratitude embodiment.
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In 1995 when I was 19 years old, I packed my
car and drove to Hollywood, CA. 3,000 miles away from my hometown is where I found my deep long lasting
gratitude in life.
Here is my path to the embodiment of gratitude.
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I grew up in a privileged community, where the
streets are safe, there are rarely any crimes, and in fact, no fast food
restaurants were allowed in city limits.
My family was ‘normal.’ I had loving parents, a
younger sister and a dog named Bliss.
I played athletics and had fun with my friends.
After high school, instead of accepting two
full ride scholarship opportunities for athletics, I worked three jobs and
followed my dreams to California. Little did I know the profound awakening I
would have to the deepest sense of gratitude imaginable.
This was my first experience living outside of
my suburban ‘bubble.’
While living for 3 months in the center of
Hollywood, I encountered the following for the first time in my life:
Homelessness
10 year old gang members selling crack
14 year old male and female prostitutes
A land lady with multiple personality disorder
– who lived next door
Skunks in the garage
People who would talk to you only if you could
do something for them
A $5 Christmas bonus from a billion dollar
family
In one of my first days of beginning my California dreams, I was looking
for an apartment. I was driving down Hollywood Boulevard at 7am on a Saturday
morning and I saw something that
would be placed in my memory forever.
I watched a man barely crawl as he was dragging
himself on the sidewalk. He was
dirty and dressed in rags. He had
no legs, no wheelchair and no one around him.
This was one of the most pitiful moments I
experienced that made me reflect on exactly what I had in life that a lot of
others were without.
Health
Love
Kindness
Support
Safety
Encouragement
Opportunity
Just to name a few.
After three months of giving the Hollywood
life a ‘go’, I decided to move back home to pursue college education.
I would have never guessed how this short trip
would have spearheaded my education all the way from age 20 – 32.
Showing me the value of education was just one
lesson Hollywood shared with me, the other was a profound sense of gratitude
that actually put me into therapy.
Upon my return home, I would cry every moment I
realized a sense of privilege in my life.
I literally was balling my eyes out one day while reading each chapter
of Chicken Soup for the Soul.
It became my mission to become a Gratitude
Ambassador and espouse this value on younger generations (whom I was coaching in sport). I wanted to impart on to them, exactly how much privilege they have in life. I did my best to enlighten them the only problem they have in life is to know where they are going for
midwinter break and that was a blessing!
After a few months of literally crying over
French fries at a diner (because I
was so grateful for food, warmth and safety) I decided to go to see a
therapist.
I became an endless pool filled with tears of
gratitude.
After a few sessions of therapy, I understood
what was happening to me and I was okay with it.
I built my character strength of gratitude. Gratitude
is a psychological state that aids in boosting happiness. My tears of gratitude
actually led me to access tear based states of joy and bliss.
It is a skill and a practice.
It is a prized human experience as it allows
your heart to open, expand, breath deep, and open to a sense of fulfillment and
contentment.
In the immortal words of the singer Sheryl Crow,
‘It’s not what you want, it’s what you got.”
I found out gratitude is my second greatest
strength and I was in the 100 percentile of my experience.
Now, I teach gratitude in my 5 step process of
sustainable happiness.
It is based in step 2: creating a positive mood
and is encouraged as part of a daily morning routine with special
guidance.
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This life event triggered the profound sense of gratitude,
which has become more of an embodiment over my lifetime. In 2007, I published a chapter in a
book similar to Chicken Soup for the Soul, yet it highlighted stories of
inspiration in tragedy when gratitude literally seems impossible. This chapter
takes a view of how I look at a lot of the life challenges I encountered through the lens of gratitude. The chapter is called Thank
God I was Fat, Ugly, Poor, Divorced and live in Chronic Pain. The theme of the chapter explained
how I came to understand sustainable happiness was within myself.
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NOTE
- Even though my childhood years were mostly happy and care free, I had many
larger challenges over the course of my lifetime.
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When it comes to
Thanksgiving and when the rest of America focuses on their gratitude, it makes
me reflect even deeper at the collectivist messages of a profound character
strength.
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In 2014, never would I have guessed my
current thinking around this gratitude based holiday would have become so
extreme.
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I have witnessed Americans fight and turkeys die.
Days prior to Thanksgiving, Americans are in
uproar and violent protests for racism.
(My grandparents own land where wild turkeys
live. It is hard for me to imagine
this!)
I watched a video
where the President
‘pardons’ a turkey from being slaughtered and he calls it ‘puzzling’. Later this video would go viral due to social criticism.
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Most of the American population celebrated this
holiday with eating a turkey. A lot of organizations and values of thought are
against this mass slaughtering of an animal for human celebration. Therefore, creating a controversy akin to
abortion!
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I even saw a cartoon where an American
Childhood icon, Big Bird of Sesame Street was dead and decapitated in the center of the table. His ‘friends’ from Sesame Street were looking like they could hardly wait
to ‘devour’ him.
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Gratitude is practiced while feasting around a
dead animal, drinking intoxicants, & watching violent sports.
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And the good ole American way, espouses the
‘pursuit’ of happiness so of course the conversations in the media and among social
circles is one of consumerism on the following day, ‘Black Friday.’ Which is racially
controversial.
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At the end of the day, people pass out due to
the tryptophan in turkey, and drift away in the midst of intoxification, family
drama, with violent sport highlights swarming among their heads anticipating
consumerism early the following morning.
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Not to mention all the violence that breaks out
in shopping malls and stores, as Americans must ‘get the best deal’ putting
their fellow humanity behind obtaining the right object for the right price.
Promoting materialism.
Mass Slaughter, Intoxification, Violent Sports,
Consumerism, Materialism
Seem to be the current celebration of
Thanksgiving.
It’s nice that Americans want to think about
gratitude once a year wrapped in the gift wrap of killing, drinking, attack,
buying, and having. <insert sarcasm>
How does this truly reflect the essence of Gratitude?
You may wonder, what I did on Thanksgiving. I consciously created grateful thoughts moment to moment. I spent the day with loved ones providing acts of kindness, fasted in the name of all turkeys, and watched a movie on a natural disaster where a family beats the impossible and survives thus furthering my gratitude awareness even deeper.
Instead of thinking about gratitude once a year through a warped lens, I encourage you to move toward the embodiment of gratitude.
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I would love to introduce a new way for
Americans and others around the world to develop a daily gratitude practice
that touches your heart instead of leading you astray.
5 Steps to experiencing Gratitude Daily
- Pick something you do everyday (brushing
teeth, drinking coffee, exercise, shower, etc)
- Decide to do a gratitude practice during
this time
- Set a time to start and end
your gratitude practice (30 seconds to 1 min)
- Use the structure: "I am grateful for
____ because it adds ____ to my life."
- Never repeat.
Dr. Bob
teaches the difference between gratitude and appreciation being gratitude is
the output and appreciation is the input.
I remember one conversation with Swami Jinendra
where he coyly said,
“Aymee, if you are breathing, you need to be
grateful.”
It is true, you are given the gift of life; to
experience it, to be in it, to have the human experience.
We can move away from the messages of astray
during this time of year and ‘boil’ our experience down to the simplest of
life; a single breath.
Imagine our global population moving to become
gratitude embodiment.
Where each thought was grateful.
We are grateful for our
breath, our legs, our food, our shelter, our family, our pets, our parks, our
planet, and the list is infinite.
I inspire you to adopt a gratitude practice
daily with the goal of becoming an embodiment of gratitude.
Dr Aymee Coget
Sustainable Happiness Doctor
Author of Forthcoming Book : Sustainable Happiness in 5 Steps
sfhappinessdoctor at gmail dot com
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