More on Gratitude
Tonight I attended a group meditation in Evanston. At the end of the session the teacher announced that there would be a talk about having gratitude for the people in our lives who have wronged us, hurt us or simply been mean spirited towards us. She shared her own story about how her mother forced her into prostitution as a young girl and how painful this experience had been. Another woman shared that her brother has been abusive towards her all her life and that he pulls her in and then pushes her away in a way that sounded and looked like abuse. It was hard for her to say that her brother abused her and at first she said that it was verbal and mental but then recalled when he had beat her up a couple of times. To this day he is still verbally abusive and she struggles with having a loving relationship with him.
Some of you have likely been treated in a way that is disrespectful, abusive and simply mean. It seems obvious that where the healing needs to start to be applied is on our own hearts and where the gratitude begins is with ourselves, but this is the truth. We often times forget that we are passing up our own heart, spirit and person and go right to someone else that we are grateful for and that we sense needs some nurturing. When we have gratitude for ourselves we build a reserve that we can share with others.
When others do things to us that are mean it is difficult to find gratitude in that situation, but it is healing for us to find something to be grateful for in that person's behavior that may be dark. In this way we take the focus off of them and we empower ourselves. It takes so much energy to be angry, talk about, relive and hold hatred towards those people who have hurt us in deed or in words. When we find gratitude in that person's actions we become clear and we turn it into a lesson. The teacher stated that she was grateful for her mother's actions and that those actions made it clear to her that her body belonged to her. In spite of the fact that she was prostituted by her mother she was able to find something about her to be grateful for. This does not mean that she did not feel that her mother did something really horrible or that she was in denial about what her mother did. What it mean to me was that her mother was not a bad person but that her actions were bad and that in spite of what she did there was something to be grateful for in her mom.
I think about my own mother who struggled with depression and anger around my father leaving her and how difficult she made it for me as a child. What I have more clarity around is the fact that her actions made it clear to me what not to do to my own children and for this I am truly grateful. I have also thought about supervisors at my former jobs and some of the mean spirited things they chose to say and that they seemed focused on when I made a mistake rather than to prize the many good things that I did well. I am so grateful for the last two because they were my motivation to take an early retirement and pursue the joyful and rewarding work that I do as a life coach. I will be forever grateful to them both.
What stands out for me is that in order to be empowered under negative circumstances we have to be clear that we don't own that person's actions and that it occupies to much energy to hate them. I want to invite all of you to think about a person in your life who was mean to you and find something about their behavior that you are grateful for. I would be honored to hear your story and sense that your experience may help others heal from their experience.
Some of you have likely been treated in a way that is disrespectful, abusive and simply mean. It seems obvious that where the healing needs to start to be applied is on our own hearts and where the gratitude begins is with ourselves, but this is the truth. We often times forget that we are passing up our own heart, spirit and person and go right to someone else that we are grateful for and that we sense needs some nurturing. When we have gratitude for ourselves we build a reserve that we can share with others.
When others do things to us that are mean it is difficult to find gratitude in that situation, but it is healing for us to find something to be grateful for in that person's behavior that may be dark. In this way we take the focus off of them and we empower ourselves. It takes so much energy to be angry, talk about, relive and hold hatred towards those people who have hurt us in deed or in words. When we find gratitude in that person's actions we become clear and we turn it into a lesson. The teacher stated that she was grateful for her mother's actions and that those actions made it clear to her that her body belonged to her. In spite of the fact that she was prostituted by her mother she was able to find something about her to be grateful for. This does not mean that she did not feel that her mother did something really horrible or that she was in denial about what her mother did. What it mean to me was that her mother was not a bad person but that her actions were bad and that in spite of what she did there was something to be grateful for in her mom.
I think about my own mother who struggled with depression and anger around my father leaving her and how difficult she made it for me as a child. What I have more clarity around is the fact that her actions made it clear to me what not to do to my own children and for this I am truly grateful. I have also thought about supervisors at my former jobs and some of the mean spirited things they chose to say and that they seemed focused on when I made a mistake rather than to prize the many good things that I did well. I am so grateful for the last two because they were my motivation to take an early retirement and pursue the joyful and rewarding work that I do as a life coach. I will be forever grateful to them both.
What stands out for me is that in order to be empowered under negative circumstances we have to be clear that we don't own that person's actions and that it occupies to much energy to hate them. I want to invite all of you to think about a person in your life who was mean to you and find something about their behavior that you are grateful for. I would be honored to hear your story and sense that your experience may help others heal from their experience.
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