What's in my Gratitude Library📚
I taught a short ZOOM workshop on the power of gratitude yesterday. That's pretty common but what was unusual was the audience.
They wanted me to speak to the neuroscience, the latest evidence and how to put a gratitude practice into a real-life usable tool.
They wanted my medical and mind-body medicine expertise. But there was also another perspective they were interested in because the audience was full of people like me.
Parents to children with Duchenne Muscular Dystrophy
No wonder I was more nervous than usual. These were my people, people who lived the kind of pain I live every day. And they wanted me to help them feel more Joy and Ease. Now, that's a tall order.
But as usual, I learned more than the audience. I was reminded of a VERY powerful piece of why gratitude is so important and transformative.
In this workshop, we broke out into small groups and shared someone we are feeling grateful for, either now or from our past, and why. With as many specifics as possible.
It's a proven tool, called the gratitude visit. After thinking of this person, the task is to write them a letter and THEN read them the letter in person or if the person is not accessible, imagining them in a chair across from you and reading it them out loud.
I heard touching stories of gratitude for grandparents and parents who have given their all, for friends who stood by them, of people who came to them at a time of need, of heart touching kindness.
I was literally misty eyed the entire time. It was the best kind of feel-good, heart bursting way to spend a Wednesday afternoon.
But the biggest gift I got was something no one talks about in the studies. It wasn't the rush of dopamine, serotonin or my empathy centers being lit up.
It was the reminder I got-----
That sharing and even hearing a story of gratitude in a challenging situation reminds us that...
We are not alone. We all struggle AND we all have the capacity to feel such love and gratitude.
The world is here FOR us. Too often in a challenging time, we feel the world is out to get us or all the "deck is stacked against us." Hearing these tender stories reminded me that the world is fundamentally good, that good people are everywhere and they are here for us.
The lens we see the world with can be widened. When we are suffering, our lens is so narrow, rigid, untenable. With seemingly no way out. But if we even expand that lens a bit, whether it be with gratitude, hope, or moving our body, whatever our tool at the moment is, we can see there is MORE. Beyond this narrow tunnel. And once we see, it's easier to see it again, and again.
So, even though those parents aren't reading this right now, what I want to write to them is that I am grateful for their love, their vulnerability and to hear their stories. Because now their stories live in my heart as stories I can turn to when I need them, expanding my gratitude library even further.
What's in your Gratitude library today that you can take out and return to? A story of someone who said or did something that you still carry with you? Can you write to them why it changed you and even better, can you read it to them now?
Life's too short to not share this. And if you don't have anyone you want to send it to, send me your story anytime. Because my library is always open...
Live (and thank) well,
Tanmeet