A Simple Path: Journey of a Hedgewitch
Willow Winterborne November, 2008
*The Hedgewitch lives in the space between the Village and the Forest. Between the mundane and the magical. S/He lives with a foot in both worlds.
This column is dedicated to the Hedgewitches of the planet earth.
Gratitude: Living Thanksgiving Every Day
Gratitude. The words conjures many images. Saying thanks, in a heartfelt way, when someone does us a kindness. Feeling comforted by the fact that we have or are something we value. The theme of Thanksgiving.
Gratitude is what separates folks who appreciate what they have from those who are never satisfied.
I know this is my personal soap-box, and to those who have endured numerous columns devoted to the subject, I offer you only my request for tolerance, as I feel it is important and underrated enough to mention it all again.
It is my belief that gratitude is much more than a feeling of thanks. I believe that in order to truly understand life’s many miracles (some of which feel good, and some which wring out our very bodies, minds and spirits) we must not only experience gratitude, periodically and contingent on a circumstance, but to live in a state of mindful gratitude. Always.
Now this is easier said than done.
I came from the womb a “glass half empty” sort of person. Always prone to recognize what I don’t have rather than to be mindful of what I do.
So, it is rather ironic this would become my platform for change in the Universe. I’m sure the gods get a big kick out of my preaching the gospel of gratitude. Considering who I was when they got me, this life!
But a very wise and dear friend suggested the Gratitude Journal to me, and that was the birthplace of my own gratitude.
Her advice was to take time at the end of each day and write down 5 things I was grateful for. She even gave me a darling little notebook to write them all down in.
Now, I being the cynical analyst I am genetically programmed to be, I laughed hysterically (not to her face, of course. I love her, however mad I thought her at that moment) and chucked the book into a drawer where it sat for the better part of 5 years, not a single word or mark in it.
But her words kept coming back to me. Oddly, not when I felt I had something to be grateful for, but when the whole world seemed to be swirling right down the toilet.
Being a sarcastic person by nature, the icky voice inside my head would say, as I was weeping due to some crushing loss, “So, what are your 5 things to be grateful for? …hee hee hee”.
One particularly bad day, I took the icky voice up on its offer, and began screaming at the top of my lungs “I am grateful for 5 things. 4 limbs and a head that still work. Only things that work! So Hah!”.
It didn’t occur to me in that moment that I had already begun to cultivate gratitude.
From that day on, I began to use the screaming my gratitude technique when I didn’t have what I needed. It was 4 limbs and a head for a long time, but I did have cause to remember how my life had been before, and how much better it was now.
Suddenly, I had a whole slew of things to be grateful for.
No one at my house hurts my body or my spirit.
I have a safe place to sleep tonight.
I ate today.
I put on clean fresh clothes this morning.
I have people in my life who care for me.
None of those things had been true for years before that, but now they were all true. My experiences of awfulness had given me something to compare things to when it got out of hand.
Now, granted, these aren’t major accomplishments or accolades. I wasn’t grateful to have been voted Wife of the Year or for having won a million dollars in the lotto. But I had things to be grateful for, and I was appreciative of each and every one.
One day, the list grew to way more than 5 things. When I got to 5, there were more, so I kept going.
Pretty soon, I wasn’t screaming at the top of my lungs, in crisis, but being quietly aware that I had cause to be grateful.
After a while, it became my mission to find something to be grateful for in every bad situation. My motto became “It could always be worse” (a far cry from little miss glass-half-empty).
Eventually, I began to seek out things to be grateful for, even when I wasn’t in crisis.
I began to think on all that I had on a regular basis. I began the day with a word of thanksgiving for all I already had, before my mind had a chance to tally up all the things I wanted but didn’t have, for the day.
I became one of those people who “always sees the bright side” (Imagine that! And, again, the gods chuckle with ironic mirth)
When the plane is delayed, I say “I am happy they are taking an extra hard look at it, so it will be safe. We will leave when we are meant to”.
When the money runs out before the next paycheck, I feel, “we are not ‘broke’. We are between money. More will be along shortly, and probably just in the nick of time“.
(it always is, too, by the way)
The more mindfully grateful I became, the more my life began to resemble what I really wanted from it.
As like always attracts like, my gratitude for all I had, began to attract more things to be grateful for.
I began to see that the most powerful first step in manifesting new blessings was to mindfully take stock of all I already had. Not to identify what was missing.
I believe that we, as humans, are not only capable of living our gratitude, but are best served by it.
We demonstrate our faith and trust in the Universe and its plan we don’t always have a clear concept of.
We are a light to others who struggle along their way.
We add power and energy to our mundane and magical workings because we are grateful, not just for what we ask for and expect to receive, but also for all we have already been given.
Gratitude is a direct line to the Divine through which we feel their nurturing, provision and connectedness.
I ask, this season of Thanksgiving, as you tuck in to a sumptuous meal shared with friends and loved ones, that you take a moment to count your blessings, and ask to be reminded regularly of all you have been blessed with.
Oh, and, can somebody pass the pumpkin pie?!
Brightest Blessings of the Season,
Willow
