Gratitude

A new year reflection and meditation on gratitude. The reflection before the practice considers gratitude and healing. Perry invokes master teachers to explore the ways gratitude can become superficial or restrictive if not grounded in full acceptance of what is here right now. How might a radical present moment connection to life as it is be a gateway to gratitude? How might gratitude invite a full experience of grief or suffering?

Transcript

Hello there.

It's 2022.

Wild.

Hard to believe another year has passed.

Grateful to be here.

Grateful to be contemplating what the turn of the year means,

If anything.

I want to explore this theme of gratitude a bit today and share a practice to tap into a sense of gratitude.

Meister Eckhart,

German theologian and mystic,

Is often quoted saying,

If the only prayer you ever say in your entire life is thank you,

It will be enough.

Gratitude as a practice,

As a prayer,

As a way of showing up to the world,

Can be quite powerful,

Quite transformative.

It can open up doors to healing,

To change.

In leadership,

I find that gratitude becomes essential medicine for paying attention to the importance of relationship at work,

Particularly in caregiving organizations,

In healing organizations.

The centrality of those relationships is so important.

And gratitude,

An ability to say thank you,

Can make a huge difference in building relationship.

Lao Tzu,

The Chinese philosopher,

Has said,

A journey of a thousand miles starts from beneath my feet.

When I contemplate this idea of change,

Of relational centered leadership,

Of transformation,

Of living into a big vision for the world that I want to see,

It can be easy to see the world it can be easy to get caught up in the big picture,

In the futuring,

Or in the dwelling in the past that we want to change.

And this quote reminds me that it starts here right now,

A call to presence.

And in presence,

We experience all of the complexity,

All of the pain,

All of the potential,

All of the healing wisdom of the past also.

It's in the presence that we can integrate it.

And with gratitude,

I think of it a bit as an integrative experience.

So from a trauma healing space,

Gratitude has the potential to be an integrating experience,

A restoration,

Even if momentary of wholeness,

Of a sense of fullness,

Non-fragmentation.

That said,

For me,

I can also get pretty fragmented in my use of gratitude,

Right?

Write a gratitude list.

Sure.

I can rattle off a list of things I'm grateful for.

And as 2021 ends and 2022 begins,

I have a long list of things that I'm grateful for.

And I can say it,

I can write it,

Can begin to claim it in words.

And yet there is something that can be a bit of a masking if that gratitude list is also not fully felt.

So in the specific ethnic and cultural heritage I come from,

Gratitude can be used a bit as a weapon.

Be grateful.

At least you have,

Fill in the blank,

Right?

Gratitude can be used to numb,

To mask,

To disguise,

To push aside pain,

Hurt,

Suffering.

And gratitude in this way,

For me,

Becomes used as an agent of continued fragmentation,

Right?

Gratitude is something that I have to think so that I can separate from the information that my body or spirit is giving me about how I feel.

And really any spiritual teaching that is used in this way,

And there are many that we can use in this way,

Contributes to that sense of fragmentation and can contribute to a sense of despair,

Something not feeling quite right.

Thomas Hubel,

Who does a lot of work in collective trauma healing,

Has a framework that I think is helpful here.

He talks about the absences,

The places where fragmentation has happened within and between mind,

Body,

Spirit,

Individually and collectively.

And he talks about presence.

And presence has the space,

The spaciousness that can integrate,

That can feel,

That can sense,

Right?

It is when we are able to see and to sense the experience of our lives that we can actually tap in to open-handed,

Generous,

Loving energy of gratitude.

If the spaciousness around the experience of life isn't something we have access to because the system that we have within or around us is in overwhelm,

Then gratitude could potentially,

As just an act of mind or ego or will,

Contribute to a deeper sense of fragmentation,

Of not allowing the spaciousness that's needed to actually feel what is here right now.

And this is captured in a quote by Hubel that reads like this,

In a deeper sense,

A great deal of human suffering exists because of the denial of the past and an inability to acknowledge and integrate it.

But when the decision is made to finally look at and feel the past,

Everything shifts.

For example,

If I or my ancestors have been suppressing grief and this deep sadness is allowed to come forward so that I can begin to authentically feel it,

It will be painful,

Yes.

And yet the more I allow its honest expression,

I will almost certainly also experience a release.

And if I continue to make this process a conscious practice,

I have begun the work of healing integration.

So I share this because for me,

This work,

This conscious practice of healing integration,

Of making space for feeling and for allowing the full expression of past experience,

It's there that I open up pathways for gratitude.

And sometimes gratitude is the pathway into this feeling.

So grief and gratitude for me and my experience are this intertwined expression and experience go hand in hand.

If I am trying to use gratitude to mask grief,

I will cut myself off from the full experience of that gratitude.

If I stay stuck in grief as a way to deny myself gratitude,

I will cut myself off from the full experience of what it means to be human.

I've experienced a lot of loss over the past few years and this practice of acknowledging grief has opened doorways to gratitude.

And I've also held resentments against folks who wanted to urge me towards gratitude when I was stuck in the mud of overwhelm,

Unable to create the spaciousness for that grief.

And all of this experience is not necessarily good or bad or right or wrong.

It just is the experience of life.

And so as we begin a new year,

As I invite you into a practice of gratitude,

I invite you in to engaging the practice with a full honoring to the extent that is possible for you right now of the experience,

The felt sense of what you're holding.

To find the doorway to gratitude without denying the experience of pain,

Of hardship,

Of grief,

Or simply of feeling.

And in this way,

Gratitude can become a practice of non-denial.

It can call us into a deep sense of the paradoxical love we have for life in the midst of struggle.

And somewhere in there,

I believe,

Is the pathway to collective healing,

To collective liberation,

To change.

And as a leader,

That practice of gratitude rooted in a non-denial starts today,

Right here,

Right now.

The journey of a thousand miles right beneath our feet.

So with that,

We'll do a brief practice for the new year,

Recognizing and honoring the spaciousness needed to say thank you.

As you are ready,

I invite you to ground in a posture that supports you.

Sitting,

Standing,

Lying down,

Whatever posture you feel called to in this moment.

As you adjust,

Take note of the invitation,

The permission for the body to feel relaxed and yet attentive.

To embrace an energy of non-striving in the posture,

Not forcing anything,

Settling into relaxed attentiveness.

You may close your eyes or simply soften the gaze.

And I'll be using the breath as an anchor in this practice.

And yet the option is always there to use a sense of contact with the earth or touch the hands on the legs,

The hands on your chest or your cheek.

That these anchors of our attention in the body invite us to stay present with what is here and now.

Invite the opportunity to sink in,

To link the mind,

The body and the spirit.

So breathing in and breathing out.

Breathing in and breathing out.

As we begin the practice,

Bringing your focus to the simple and gentle rhythm of breath.

Not seeking to control the breathing,

Simply noticing the in-breath and the out-breath.

Breathing in,

Breathing out.

As you breathe in,

Breathing out.

I'm thankful.

Breathing in,

Breathing out.

I'm grateful.

Breathing in,

Breathing out.

Thank you.

Allowing yourself to choose a phrase that works for you in this practice.

Simply a phrase that calls to you for this moment,

Perhaps.

I'm thankful.

I'm grateful.

Thank you.

Whatever expression of gratitude calls to you and maintaining our focus on the breath,

Allowing that rhythm of breathing,

However consistent or inconsistent,

To support you in cultivating gratitude.

Breathing in,

Thank you.

Breathing out,

Thank you.

Breathing in,

Thank you.

Breathing out,

Thank you.

Breathing out,

Thank you.

Not striving,

Not forcing,

Not willing the gratitude to surface.

Simply making space for thanks.

Noticing the thoughts,

The emotions,

The senses that arise in this spaciousness.

Allowing them.

Returning to the breath.

Breathing in,

I'm grateful.

Breathing out,

I'm grateful.

Noticing any of the spaces where the phrase set up a tension with the felt experience for you.

Inviting the gratitude to harmonize with the felt sense of what is within and around you right now.

Gratitude as acceptance.

Gratitude as presence.

Perhaps you expand the practice,

You open up the practice so that as a thought or feeling or sensation arises within your awareness,

Thank you is the response.

I'm grateful is the response.

Thank you,

Breath.

Thank you,

Fear.

Thank you,

Joy.

Thank you,

Hesitation.

Thank you,

Grief.

Thank you.

Bringing our attention back to the breath or to contact with the earth.

Breathing in,

Breathing out,

I am grateful.

Being here,

Now,

Grounded,

Connected,

I'm grateful.

Being with what is,

I'm grateful.

I'm grateful for that which I can see and sense and that which is not yet available to me.

Placing my hand on my heart and my belly,

I'm grateful for this body.

Opening my hands outward,

I'm grateful for this community.

Lifting my hands upward,

I am grateful for my ancestors,

For those who came before me.

And in whatever way you would like to close your practice,

I invite you to do so now.

Perhaps a deep breath in and out.

Perhaps a bow or a stretch.

Something else.

Opening your eyes if they've been closed,

Looking around at the lights and the colors,

The space you inhabit.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Blessings on this year,

2022.

Reviews

Thanks so much for your lovely meditation. May the joy be with you. Nàmaste