Gratitude Mini-Series S1/E3: First Person Gratitude

It's always easier for me to be grateful to someone else than to be grateful for my own good heart. And yet we all have such good hearts. On today's Wake Up Call, which is prerecorded, I want to offer space and time for you to be grateful for your good and beautiful heart. I hope you give yourself that time and space. You can listen to today's recorded Wake Up Call here, and wherever you get your podcasts.

Transcript

Hey,

Everyone,

It's Judy Cohen,

And this is Wake Up Call 327 for November 25th,

2021,

Which is U.

S.

Thanksgiving Day and the day before Native American Heritage Day.

And today I wanted to offer everybody a short talk and a kind of a combined meditation.

So just about 10 minutes total.

And this will be recorded but not live.

So I hope you enjoy.

Last week in this gratitude miniseries I've been offering,

I talked about what I'm calling the five habits of highly grateful lawyers.

So slow down.

Remember we're just here for a moment.

Be humble about privilege and well.

Practice mental subtraction,

Which is the practice of noticing things that we're grateful for and then imagining if we didn't have them or if there are people that they were in our lives.

And then how much more gratitude comes up when we do that.

And then practicing gratitude out loud.

Today I'd like to suggest we point towards the parts of ourselves that we're grateful for.

And this might not come easily,

Or at least I know it doesn't come easily for me because for me,

It's almost like no matter what I'm doing or how well I'm doing or no matter how much I do for others or for the planet or to wake up as a white Jewish woman,

I feel like I can definitely do a little bit better.

And I think of Suzuki Roshi,

The founder of San Francisco Zen Center,

Famously saying you're all perfect and you could all use a little improvement.

And that's true,

But in that delta between whatever we're doing to take care of ourselves and each other and the planet and what's possible and in the even greater delta between what's possible and what's needed,

Still there's room for gratitude.

So right now,

Take a moment and call to mind something you've done for someone else in the last hour,

Maybe or day or week or month.

And it might have been as small as holding open a door or making soup for a person who wasn't feeling well or might have been letting a friend cry on your shoulder,

Taking care of a parent or having tea with somebody,

Baking cookies for a kid,

Might have been covering a hearing for a colleague or agreeing to an extension even though you'd rather have had the thing done,

Could have been supporting a staff member in some way,

Voting in favor of promoting a young person at your farm or at your school.

And whatever it is,

Just notice how it feels right now to call this thing to mind this good deed.

In Yiddish,

We'd say this mitzvah.

And first is,

Are you having any of what I described?

Yeah,

But I could have done more.

I could have done better.

And if so,

Just notice that and then let it go.

So you can clearly see the mitzvah,

The act of kindness.

And you can explore,

Like,

Did I do this good deed spontaneously or did I have to overcome an internal objection?

And am I having anything come up right now,

Like sorrow that I wasn't able to do more or frustration that I had to give up something in the process or confusion or any other reaction?

And if the answer to any of those is yes,

No problem.

Just notice that they're true and then shift to seeing clearly to what you did do,

To the kindness that you did offer.

So one thing that came to mind for me was being able to be there for a friend,

Going through some hard stuff with their siblings.

And another was lifting our old dog up onto the bed every night because she can't make the jump anymore.

And these are small things.

They can be small things,

But just take a moment and appreciate your own act of kindness,

Your mitzvah.

Don't blow by it.

Take a moment to appreciate yourself for having done it.

Even if there were obstacles then or there are obstacles now.

And now even go one step further or feels further to me and be grateful because you sought of the act of kindness,

You did it and you're remembering it.

And as you're being grateful,

Log it internally,

Not as a notch on your belt,

But as something to remember,

A moment of remembering your own kindness and of being grateful for having thought of it,

Been able to do it,

Done it.

And just take a breath right there.

And now think about something you gave in service of a relationship recently,

Today,

This week,

This month,

And might be a personal relationship,

Something you gave your partner or a child or a parent or a friend.

Or it could be something,

You know,

Professional relationship,

Like some way of having given of yourself in a case or a matter for a colleague.

So when I thought about it,

I thought about offering some kind words to someone who is doing really hard work for me.

And I also thought about letting go of something that irritated me that my partner said.

So again,

These can be small.

And when you call this thing to mind,

Think about,

Did you do it spontaneously or did you have to think about it?

And did anything get in the way at the time or is there something in the way now?

Are there any difficult feelings about it?

And if so,

That's fine.

It's not a problem.

Just notice those things and then let them go.

Let them evaporate so that you can see more clearly into the kindness you offered and take in that you saw the possibility of kindness towards a family member,

Friend or colleague.

You acted on that possibility and now you're recalling it and recall it with gratitude.

You know,

Gratitude for having seen the possibility,

For having offered the kindness and even maybe gratitude for what got in the way and you overcame that.

And just take a breath here.

And then last,

Just think about really the profound issues facing our profession and society and world and think about something you did in the past day or week or month to make things just even a small bit better,

A little bit better.

And I don't know,

One thing I've been doing is wishing people a happy Thanksgiving and happy Native American Heritage Day because for me acknowledging both feels slightly healing,

Slightly.

Another thing I do regularly is wash and reuse our plastic food bags.

So these can be small things.

They don't have to be giving up your gas-fueled car,

But they can be.

There are so many opportunities to create good,

Which then in turn gives us that many more opportunities to appreciate the goodness in our own hearts and to also maybe see what gets in the way of our expressing that goodness and then express it anyway.

And then these opportunities come together as opportunities to take a moment and maybe take that now and to be grateful that somehow,

Whether it's because of your practice or the way you were raised or the way you raised yourself up from whatever circumstances or whatever causes and conditions,

That somehow you can be grateful that you took those small or maybe big steps and that you did some good.

And taking a breath right now,

What does it feel like to be grateful for your own good heart?

Check in.

And again,

As obstacles arise to seeing matches,

Let them go.

Keep things as clear as possible so that you can really see your own goodness.

Step into your own goodness.

Feel your own goodness.

And be grateful for your own goodness.

I once heard that there are just three prayers in the world.

Please help and thank you.

So maybe this is a prayer.

Thank you for the ability to care,

To do good.

You know,

In the midst of so much difficulty in our lives and the world,

Thank you for your good deeds,

For your good heart.

And happy Thanksgiving.

And happy Native American Heritage Day.

And this wake-up call is offered in memory of Ahmaud Arbery,

Who was murdered,

And in gratitude to the prosecutors who obtained a conviction against his murderers and to the almost all-white Georgia jury who convicted them.

May Mr.

Arbery's memory be for a blessing.

Thank you.

Have a good set of holidays.

I'll see you next week.