Practicing Gratefulness in Challenging Times

Now carefully name one personal quality you will most need in order to meet the difficulty you face. You have a host of possibilities from which to choose: flexibility, patience, hope, humor, kindheartedness, devotion, simplicity, strength, humility, discernment, truth-telling, sensitivity, confidence, forgiveness…. Did you find what you need? If not, add to the list; there are hundreds of choices.

Once you’ve named one, plan on a time of day when you will regularly have a few moments alone with your thoughts. If possible, make this a quiet time when you’re sure to be undisturbed. But don’t worry if your “aloneness” needs to be in the midst of a crowd: for instance, on a subway or while you’re doing the dishes with family members nearby.

Make up your mind to devote your chosen time every day to drawing up the quality you need. Imagine drawing it up from your heart, like buckets full of water from a deep well. You can do this in a number of ways. You can simply repeat to yourself, softly or silently, the name of the quality. Repeat it many times. Or you can envision yourself embodying this quality in a crisis. Or you can hold in mind a symbol of it, such as a sunlit June meadow for contentment or a granite boulder for steadfastness.

In your “alone” time each day, call upon your chosen quality as if it was right there within you, ready to emerge when given attention. You will find this “as if” to be absolutely true. As you focus your attention on this quality, it does arise. It will lead you to hidden blessings in even the most trying circumstances. These blessings may be internal — you surprisingly discover within yourself resources to rise to a difficult occasion — or even external, like struggling through a traumatic move only to meet someone who becomes your best friend. Will you allow yourself to pay attention, each day, to love, mercy, dedication, or whatever else you most need? Set your mind now on doing so for the next month.