The Burden of Gratitude

Working in the drive-thru the day after Christmas led to lots of conversations with people about how their Christmas was. Generally, there was a string of "goods" and "greats" and the question being reciprocated back to me. But when I asked one lady if she had a nice Christmas, she replied candidly that she doesn't really like this time of year. I was sympathetic to this sentiment because I know the holidays can feel difficult for people for all sorts of reasons. I didn't ask her to explain, but she chose to elaborate and her reason kind of surprised me. She said she just really hates having to feel grateful for gifts she didn't really want. She seemed truly burdened and I felt bad for her. She couldn't come up with anything pleasant about the holiday and couldn't even manage to be grateful for the heart of the giver, even if they missed the mark on giving the perfect gift. She could only focus on the burden of gratitude. 

As with most drive-thru conversations, it was brief and almost certainly didn't leave me with a full picture of what her life is like. But I couldn't stop thinking about the "burden of gratitude" and how that shows up in my life sometimes as well. Gratitude has gotten me through the very darkest moments of my life, and I believe absolutely in its power. It makes even the bare minimum enough. It can create a portal for joy even in a dismal situation. As Cicero said, "Gratitude is not only the greatest of virtues but the parent of all others." 

But as much as I believe these things to be true, I admit there have also been many times when I felt the burden to be grateful for the gifts Life has given me--things I didn't want or ask for, things that didn't seem to be a good fit, things that ran counter to my expectations or desires. It reminds me of one Christmas when I was in middle school and my mom gave me a cassette tape (Yes, I'm THAT old) of an artist I had never heard of. All I really knew was that it wasn't one of the cool singers that all my friends were listening to, and in all my angsty teenage glory, I couldn't even find a way to force gratitude. I threw the tape aside and declared it a dumb gift. And my mother, in her justifiable shock and disgust at my poor attitude, demanded I turn the tape back over to her. A few hours later, remorse kicked in. I felt terrible about the way I had treated my mom and understood I had very clearly disrespected her by disrespecting her gift. I still didn't really want the tape, but I did want to repair the rift I had created in my relationship with my mom. I understood that she had given me a gift she thought was good and that I could be grateful that she even bothered to get me a gift at all. I went to her and apologized, and she returned the tape to me. A few days later, I decided to pop it in my cassette player, just to see what it was. One of the songs turned out to be one I absolutely loved and played over and over throughout the next few years. I even have that song on my playlist now because I still enjoy it and because it reminds me of that time in my life. 

In that instance and many others since, I have felt the temptation to complain about gifts I have received and to justify my bad attitude. But Life often gives beautiful gifts messily wrapped. It gives things we don't think we want and that don't appear to be good on the surface. And it's easy to hate having to feel grateful for them, even when we know that gratitude itself is the secret to making an unwanted gift actually much beloved. 

As the new year approaches, I am examining how things have gone this year and how I want things to change as I step into the next chapter. I can see times this year when I wasn't grateful and times when even the idea of gratitude felt like a burden. I can also see times when I was grateful for every little thing. I know the latter are the times I felt better--happier, healthier, and more peaceful. One of my words for 2025 is contentment, and I believe that only comes from a grateful heart. My wish for all of us is that gratitude wouldn't be a burden but that it would be the activator that makes all Life's gifts absolutely perfect. 

I am out with lanterns looking for myself --Emily Dickinson

Sometime in the last week or so, my internet wanderings brought me into the path of this quote by Emily Dickinson: "I am out with lanterns looking for myself." Even though the quote comes from a letter she wrote to a friend lamenting the tiresome and discombobulating process of moving into a new house, it has been haunting my thoughts ever since I came across it. I find it captures a feeling that has rattled around inside me periodically throughout my life but that I have never really been able to explain so clearly. 

(Can we all just pause for a moment and appreciate the beauty of this poet's writing even about a relatively mundane situation? Wow!)

For most of the years I've been living, I have been trying to discover my passion and purpose in life, to figure out who I really am and what's truly important to me. It always feels like an urgent mission, one that can't wait until morning, which is why the lanterns are needed. But it is so dark all around, and the lantern flickers and casts its own confusing shadows and doesn't actually shed much light on anything, and what I am looking for seems to remain elusive. Who is the person I am truly meant to be? Where can I find her? Will I even know her if I come across her in some wild sweep of the light? I need to find her. I want to know her. The search seems desperate but futile, and I am growing tired of wandering through the darkness with nothing much to show for my efforts. 

It isn't that I haven't found some good things in the searching. But it's like I have found only pieces of a puzzle without knowing what the whole picture is supposed to look like. I don't know how they all fit together or even where to start to arrange them into something cohesive and lovely. 

For around two decades I have found my passion and purpose primarily in motherhood, which does indeed feel like a worthy pursuit, even though there has often been internal and external pressure to be more than "just a mom." When I was able to ignore the voices telling me the pursuit of motherhood wasn't enough, it became the single most important thing in my life and I really don't have any regrets for letting it consume me. Motherhood has calmed the frantic searching for myself over the years, to a large degree because it has truly felt like what I was meant for. It has been my greatest adventure and teacher and has given me deeper meaning than anything else in my life. I absolutely adore being "mom" to my four kids, and I know I will always carry that precious title. But my babies are growing up and need me less and less, and soon they will all be out of my house and making their own way in the world. It is good and right that it should be this way, but I think contemplating the next phase of my life outside of full-time motherhood is what caused Ms. Dickinson's words to hit me so hard. 

I need to figure out what my passion and purpose look like in the next chapter of my life, so "I am out with lanterns looking for myself," and, frankly, feeling more lost than ever. The ways I have defined myself in the past don't fit anymore, and I find myself in an uncomfortable stage of life where my old self is gone (or almost gone), but my new self isn't born yet. I don't like this place of lost identity. And I don't know how to step into what is next without knowing even the smallest clue of what that is. I know I will get through this as I have all the difficult things life has thrown at me so far, but I hope to find a better search tool than these tricky lanterns. 

I know I am by no means the first mom to experience this challenging transition from full-time mom to empty nester, so if you've been through it and actually found yourself--or maybe, rather, your *new* self--please share your secrets with me. If you've been through it (or are going through it) and haven't yet found yourself, please know you are not alone. I'm out here with lanterns searching for myself, too, and am happy to share with you whatever light I do have. 

Sitting with Vulnerability Unapologetically

I have noticed that I have been trying to run from vulnerability lately. In truth, I have been attempting to run from it all my life. It feels very uncomfortable and risky, and, frankly, I don't like the way it seems to manifest as a perceived loss of control. But in the last few years, I have done a lot of work with myself to figure out how to sit with my feelings and really feel them and how to find strength in my vulnerability and to accept and love myself as I am, so I've been surprised at how my old habits have been creeping back in and how unsettled I've been feeling in vulnerable moments recently. I feel myself wanting to run and hide from my own humanity, and I have finally started to ask myself why that should be the case. I don't have all the answers, but I am starting to piece together a few potential ideas. 

First of all, for many months there has been a situation in my life that has broken my heart in new and more painful ways than anything I've experienced previously, and those feelings have honestly just felt too difficult to sit with and too heavy to hold, so I have not allowed myself to do it to any real healing degree. And, I have felt like if I let any vulnerability in, even unrelated to that circumstance, the dam will break and I will be flooded and might actually drown. Instead, I have been keeping myself extremely busy and have basically been dissociating through my life, just trying to survive each day. This is a reasonable short-term coping strategy, but it is not a healthy way to live a life, and I feel it taking a toll on me. Anything that isn't fully faced and dealt with will just continue to be a problem, growing more toxic the longer it lingers. My increased agitation to my vulnerability is a cue that I need to go ahead and face it, which means I have to feel it, which seems like opening myself up to pain. Thus, the desire to run and hide. But, like a child who fears the monster under the bed, my fear of it will only continue to grow until I stop and shed some light on it. 

As I begin to sit with it, though, I'm realizing there is another thread running underneath. We humans are taught in a million ways to fear and try to flee our own humanity. We have learned to equate vulnerability with weakness and to therefore distrust anything that makes us feel vulnerable. In general, there seems to have been a trend of boys being taught not to allow themselves to feel feelings at all and certainly not to express them and for girls to be taught that they can feel them (at least some of them) but they must apologize for feeling and expressing them. We can even be discouraged from feeling good, happy feelings because they are just "too much" for the people around us. 

I spend a lot of time with teenagers, and I can tell you these patterns to deny or apologize for our humanity are fully developed by the time humans reach that stage of life. From very early ages and especially in the pre-teen and teen years, we learn even to be ashamed of and apologize for the physical attributes of our bodies that we have no control over, like our height or our melanin levels, constantly reminding ourselves and being reminded by others that we are not good enough the way we are. And I can confirm from experience and from interacting with many people that the patterns to deny and apologize for physical and emotional attributes generally carry right on over into adulthood. Perceived flaws of any kind are highly discouraged. 

It makes sense from an evolutionary standpoint, because way back in human history the vulnerable ones were the first to die. But the vulnerability I'm avoiding now isn't a matter of life and death, and I have to remind my brain of that fact frequently. I want to run and hide from it because it feels dangerous. And I want to apologize for things that warrant no apology because sometimes my humanity is inconvenient and uncomfortable to myself and to those around me. However, as I'm starting to dig in more to this desire to run from vulnerability, I am realizing that every time I hide and every time I apologize, I keep my brain thinking that vulnerability is bad and that my humanity is somehow wrong, and then I close myself off to a well-rounded and truly healthy human experience. I love all of Brené Brown's work, and I appreciate that she reminds us over and over that "vulnerability is not weakness" but rather an act of bravery and an instrument of change.

I'm not in any way advocating out-of-control behaviors (behaviors and feelings are different things anyway), but I am not going to keep apologizing for being human--neither for my body nor for my emotions. My body does so much for me every single day, and I need to treat it with respect and gratitude. I can take care of it in ways that support its health and well-being, but I do not need to act as if it is a burden to me (or to others), particularly the parts/attributes I was literally born with that can't be changed. Additionally, a whole range of emotions have been given to me to guide me and to help me regulate. They also need to be greeted with curiosity and gratitude. 

When we can sit with our humanity/vulnerability, as a companion rather than enemy, we can make the most of our human experience and grow into true maturity. This is difficult but important. And, as I'm learning, it's ongoing work that must be practiced regularly. I accept the challenge, and I will not apologize to myself or to others for feeling the way I feel or for existing inside a unique human body. I will instead invite vulnerability for a visit and sit with her long enough to see what she can teach me.

It's Today!

When my youngest child was around three years old, he used to wander into my room in the pre-dawn hours and loudly and cheerfully make the same proclamation every morning in the most adorable little sing-songy voice: "It's today!" Even when the announcement was made at 4:00 in the morning, I would often find my sleep deprived self smiling at his enthusiasm for the new day (but still trying to encourage him to give sleep another chance).

As a person who struggles with anxiety, I find it lamentably easy to get caught up in the disappointments of yesterday and the fears of tomorrow. My mind will churn on these things unbidden for hours on end--creating more problems and fewer solutions as the thoughts continue to swirl. It is hard for me to stay focused on the present, and I frequently feel as if I have to fight for every moment of peace, which is actually exhausting. People who don't experience this kind of anxiety will often advise that I simply stop thinking about things that cause anxiety or suggest I just redirect my thoughts or that I make an effort to try to be positive--advice that makes perfect sense to their non-anxious brains. If you do experience true anxiety, you know it isn't that easy and that trying to stop those thoughts on demand can actually cause more anxiety. 

It is important to me to continue to pursue peace even when it's exhausting and even when it doesn't come naturally. I have a variety of tools at my disposal to help me not get sucked into the anxiety vortex and sometimes they work very well. Recently, I've been trying to combat anxiety by attempting to ground myself in the present, an effort that brought to mind the sweet toddler voice of my youngest child announcing the presence of a new day, saying, "It's today!" The memory makes me smile every time. For him, it was just pure enthusiasm and awe. For me, it is that, but it is also a catch phrase I'm using with myself to refocus my attention on the here and now. It's a reminder that this moment is the only one that matters and that I can set down the disappointments of the past and the fears of the future and simply be dazzled in whatever way possible by the magic of this present moment. And, I believe there absolutely is magic in this present moment, if I am willing to look for it. 

I am trying to teach myself that this day is everything and to experience only gratitude in the countless opportunities it holds for love and beauty and joy and growth. This day is magical and I don't want to miss it!

As a concrete reminder, I have taped an index card to my bathroom mirror with a mantra that reads: "It's today! Today is the very best day. It holds countless possibilities for joy and beauty and adventure and love and magic. It carries none of the disappointments of yesterday or fears of tomorrow. Today is my favorite, and I'm so very thankful to have the chance to live in it fully." 

Minds believe what we tell them, so I'm trying to be intentional with the words I use when speaking to and about myself. I want to be awed by this day. I want to be present in this moment. I will probably always struggle with anxiety, but I will not let it engulf me without a fight. My peace of mind is worth fighting for, so I will remind myself as many times as necessary to "be happy for this moment. This moment is your life." (Omar Khayyam)

It's today!

Connection

My youngest son wants to be a blacksmith when he grows up. He told me a couple of weeks ago that he sure would like to go see a real blacksmith because he had some questions. Over the weekend, we decided to revisit the blacksmith shop that first inspired him, where they do public demonstrations and have some hands-on activities available. He was completely enraptured by the experience. And I learned some very important things from the blacksmith myself. 

First of all, he told us that blacksmiths work mostly by sight. They spend years learning to see when the metal is ready to be removed from the fire and when it is ready to be twisted or hammered or manipulated in some other way. The color of the metal tells them what they need to know, even when there are only small variations in hue. But looks, he said, can be deceiving to the untrained eye. He explained that eyes that don't know what to look for might observe that the metal has gone from glowing red to blackish gray and assume it is cool to the touch. Not true. Steel that looks cool may actually still be somewhere in the neighborhood of 1000 degrees. If a blacksmith wants to ensure the metal is cool, he will dunk it in a bucket of water, which will almost instantaneously take the heat out of it and solidify the work. When the blacksmith mentioned the high temperatures the metal was reaching (and staying at a while after it appeared "cool"), I questioned aloud why he was doing this work without gloves of any kind. He explained that steel is a pretty poor conductor of heat. So if he has a longish rod (maybe two feet or so), he can hold it in his hand and never really feel the heat of the end that had been submerged in the fire. But then he let us in on a little secret that felt truly profound. He said the main reason he didn't wear gloves while working was because he's a craftsman, and in order to make the metal do what he wants and become something useful or beautiful, he not only needs to visually observe it, he needs to be physically connected to it, to feel it. The more insulation he puts between his hand and the metal, the less accurate and precise his work and the more likely he would be to make mistakes. 

Connection has been on my mind a lot lately, and usually when something is rattling around in my head, the Universe shows up with all kinds of lessons on the topic in places I never really even expected to find them. Specifically, I've been pondering human connections. I've been wondering how to create them and how to strengthen them and how to keep them intact. I know connection is something I crave deeply, but it isn't always something I intuitively understand how to produce or maintain. And sometimes it's something I either actively avoid through a myriad of defense mechanisms or something I just don't invest the effort in, either intentionally or unintentionally. The blacksmith helped me understand connection a bit better, I think. 

First of all, I need to see--really see--the people I desire to make a connection with. And since connection isn't a one-way street, I need to feel seen--really seen--as well. I need to learn to recognize the subtle variations in what I see so I'll know whether a relationship is "too hot to handle" or whether it is has "cooled." I need to be able to read how malleable the relationship is and if it is in a place to become something beautiful or if it needs some tweaks. I can only get this kind of connection by investing time and energy and genuine attention. And I can only experience a true connection when the other person is willing to invest to an equal degree. Not only that: to have real connection, I must remove as many insulators as possible so I can truly be in touch with those around me. That means I will have to allow space for people to be vulnerable, and I will have to allow myself to be vulnerable as well. In-person, face-to-face connections will always be the most meaningful because they are by their nature the least insulated. They allow for the most contact as the art of the relationship unfolds. 

Interestingly, a few days before my visit to the blacksmith, I had looked up some Brené Brown quotes for inspiration. She is one of my favorite authors and one seriously wise woman, and on a day when I was feeling a little "blah," I thought she might have some words to help me rise above my limiting mindset. There were a few I added to my collection of quotes, but one really stood out: "To form meaningful connections with others, we must first connect with ourselves." And that little gem was swirling in my head as I exited the blacksmith shop pondering connection. 

I cannot create meaningful connections with other people until I learn to connect with myself. That means I have to stop insulating and distracting and disengaging from myself long enough and often enough to really get in touch with myself. I need to really see myself and understand myself so I can learn what the variations in my colorful emotions mean. There is always the potential to get burned, but the more I learn to trust the process, the easier it will become and the better craftsman I will be. There is a masterpiece inside me waiting to emerge, but I have to be deeply connected with myself so I know when to heat things up or cool things down or put in a twist or take a hammer to it. 

One of my great desires in life is to make meaningful connections with other human beings. In fact, I believe this is absolutely my main purpose in life. It is something I strive for in my home, in my job, in my social circles, and even in everyday activities like grocery shopping. Sometimes those connections come easily, but sometimes they are a struggle. I know now, after several years of learning and growth--and an important reminder in a blacksmith shop--that the first step to making those connections with others is to stop insulating myself from my own experience. I have to be really in touch with it, even when it seems like it might be a little dangerous or uncomfortable. Before I can connect outwardly, I must connect inwardly. That connection will help me create something beautiful of myself, which will help me fulfill my life purpose of making meaningful connections with others.

Great, Glorious Pieces of Good

A friend recently posted a quote from Dolly Parton that I love and cannot stop thinking about: "I make a point to appreciate all the little things in my life. I go out and smell the air after a good, hard rain. I re-read passages from my favorite books. I hold the little treasures that somebody special gave me. These small actions help remind me that there are so many great, glorious pieces of good in the world." Dolly grew up poor and ended up rich, but as far as I can tell, she embraced this philosophy of appreciating the little things throughout her life. It's the last bit that particularly sticks with me. There are truly so many "great, glorious pieces of good in the world," and even though I keep a daily gratitude journal that covers many of those things, I feel as if I have a tendency to focus on the negative sometimes, and I want to be intentional about breaking out of that mindset. So today, I'm sharing some of the amazing little things I've had the privilege of experiencing this week. 

Great, Glorious Pieces of Good:

• Seeing the full moon, both at night and in the morning
• Viewing gorgeous sunrises while taking my kids to school
• Watching a silly puppy play with a too-big stick
• Getting a much needed haircut
• Playing board games with my youngest
• Spending time with lovely girlfriends
• Dancing with my oldest son in the living room
• Snuggling with my youngest son during a family movie night
• Celebrating a personal victory for my oldest son
• Participating in a special family tradition
• Making and eating yummy food
• Soaking up the sunshine and lovely weather with a couple of nice walks
• Finding a 90% off sale at one of my favorite consignment stores
• Receiving several sincere compliments
• Watering my houseplants
• Having meaningful conversations
• Listening to great music and sometimes singing along