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Dr. Kalinda Rose Stevenson
Gratitude For What Is, Right Now
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“I would maintain that thanks are the highest form of thought, and that gratitude is happiness doubled by wonder.”
G. K. Chesterton
Of all of the holidays in our calendar, both civic and religious, Thanksgiving Day brings together all of the essential elements of being “Abundantly Alive Now!” We all understand the connection between Thanksgiving and abundance as we sit down to eat enormous feasts. What intrigues me is the connection between Thanksgiving and time, and how this connection affects what it means to be fully “alive.” Thanksgiving Day is the holiday that celebrates the “Now” in a unique way.
Did you ever play with a magnifying glass in the sun? If you hold the magnifying class steady, you can concentrate the rays of the sun onto a combustible object and watch the object catch on fire. Thanksgiving Day can be that kind of magnifying glass to focus powerful and transformative energy onto your life.
“Develop an attitude of gratitude, and give thanks for everything that happens to you, knowing that every step forward is a step toward achieving something bigger and better than your current situation.”
Brian Tracy
Thanksgiving Day is a focal point, where past and future converge into one single moment. Thanksgiving Day is a pivot between the past and the future, between what was and what can be. Thanksgiving Day is a fulcrum between where we have been and where we are going. Thanksgiving Day is the ultimate spiritual holiday because it exists to offer gratitude for the realities of the present moment.
I know, I know. The reality of Thanksgiving Day can be very different, and anything but spiritual. Cooks can become frazzled and frustrated with twenty-five pound turkeys and conflicting family traditions about what must be included on the Thanksgiving table. As a case in point, consider this letter to Miss Manners.
“Dear Miss Manners:”
“My sister-in-law always serves white potatoes for Thanksgiving. She already knows that my husband and I don’t eat white potatoes, and we don’t eat stuffing because it contains white bread.”
“When I offered to make whipped organic sweet potatoes at her house, she acted offended and said she didn’t have room for another cook in her kitchen.”
“We think it is insensitive to serve a dish she knows we don’t eat, and then not let us contribute something in its place. My husband thinks we should just cancel and not go.”
Miss Manners
Judith Martin
And if the food isn’t enough to push a cook over the edge of sanity, Macy’s Thanksgiving Day parade and football games provide plenty of other distractions to keep us off balance. Thanksgiving travel also means frantic airports and heavy traffic. And families are made up of fallible human beings who bring their loves and hurts and oddities to dinner. Whatever tensions exist in the family do not go away because the calendar tells us to be thankful.
But underneath all of the stresses and excesses of the day, Thanksgiving Day occurs in our calendars as a unique opportunity to focus our scattered minds on “Now.” At its core, Thanksgiving Day calls us to be grateful for what is, right now.
The truth is, most of us are not grateful for what is, right now. We are pulled away from the present moment by memories of the past or thoughts about the future. We can have fears, hopes, dreams and plans about the future. But our lives are not in the future. Whatever will be, it is not now.
At the same time, we can be pulled backwards, with regrets, hurts, and happy and sad memories. But our lives are not in the past. Whatever was, it is not now. Meditation teaches us to settle our monkey minds on now. Nothing is harder than this. The ultimate human challenge is to be fully present right now.
The second human challenge is to be grateful for what is, right now. Thanksgiving is the remedy for two profound discontents in our lives. The first discontent is to be so focused on the injustices of the past that there can be no room for gratitude for the present. The second discontent is to be so focused on striving toward getting what we want that there is no room for gratitude for what we already have.
“Gratitude changes the pangs of memory into a tranquil joy.”
Dietrich Bonhoeffer
When I think of the connection between gratitude and the past, I think of my mother. I knew my mother as a bitter woman. If she was grateful for anything in her life, I was never aware of it. I am quite sure I never heard her say “thank you” for anything. I do remember constant complaints about the unfairness of her life, and the injustices that had happened to her in the past. Her bitterness about the past kept her from ever being satisfied with anything at any moment.
Instead of being grateful for what she had in the “Now,” my mother “made do.” I heard that phrase again and again. “Make do with what you have.” “Making do” meant eating what she hated, wearing what she hated, living where she hated, being with people she hated, and doing what she hated (including being a mother.)
My mother was incapable of expressing gratitude in the “Now” because her past was too much with her. It also robbed her of her capacity to enjoy her life, and made living with her a painful ordeal. I was truly grateful to escape her presence the day after my eighteenth birthday.
“Gratitude unlocks the fullness of life. It turns what we have into enough, and more. It turns denial into acceptance, chaos to order, confusion to clarity. It can turn a meal into a feast, a house into a home, a stranger into a friend. Gratitude makes sense of our past, brings peace for today, and creates a vision for tomorrow.”
Melody Beattie
The opposite extreme to my mother’s focus on the past is the tendency to focus on getting more in the future. “More” is a disease that afflicts us all in a consumer society. Wanting more has become a way of life. We are so used to wanting more and more and more that we don’t realize how much wanting more also robs us of the capacity to enjoy life in the “Now.”
The entire advertising industry exists to make us want more than we have. Ads are designed to build discontent and dissatisfaction. Advertising has to persuade us that something is missing in our lives so that we will rush out and buy it. In contrast, Thanksgiving Day asks us to focus on what is, right now, and be grateful for what we have right now.
I have written before about the question, “What is enough?” (November 8, 2005.) Knowing “what is enough” is dramatically different from “making do.” “Making do” comes from a belief in lack. “What is enough” is firmly rooted in a belief in abundance. When you decide that “this is enough,” you are making a statement about being satisfied in the present moment. You know that there could be more, but you are satisfied right now with what you have.
“This is enough right now” doesn’t mean that you stop dreaming or planning for more in the future. It simply means that you are willing to be content with whatever you have right now. And when you are content, you are able to be grateful for what is, right now.
“Happiness cannot be traveled to, owned, earned, worn or consumed. Happiness is the spiritual experience of living every minute with love, grace, and gratitude.”
Denis Waitley
Finally we come to the connection between gratitude and being “alive.” Robert Emmons of the University of California at Davis is a professor of psychology who has conducted research studies on gratitude and thankfulness. Clinical research has demonstrated that gratitude results in greater psychological and physical well being.
“Grateful people report higher levels of positive emotions, life satisfaction, vitality, optimism and lower levels of depression and stress. The disposition toward gratitude appears to enhance pleasant feeling states more than it diminishes unpleasant emotions. Grateful people do not deny or ignore the negative aspects of life.”
Robert Emmons
http://psychology.ucdavis.edu/labs/emmons/
Gratitude is the secret of living an Abundantly Alive Now! life. Whatever else you do on Thanksgiving Day, I encourage you to be grateful for what is, right now.
Click here for Words of Gratitude for Mind, Body, and Soul by Robert A. Emmons and Joanna Hill.
This article was originally published November 22, 2005.
http://www.abundantlyalivenow.com/archive/AANN-2005-11-22.htm
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© 2005 Kalinda Rose Stevenson, Ph.D.
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