How have you experienced the transformative power of grateful living?

It was an April, almost two decades ago now, that I experienced the transformative power of gratitude for the first time. I had experienced quite intense trauma and mental abuse for a few months the year before that particular April. The abuse was unexpected to everyone.. Brief. Complicated. Gaslighting. And I was smart and got out pretty quickly. But then I was stalked and harassed intensely for months, had to cut off from all my relationships and locations – all relationships – every one (on professional advice) and restart my life completely.

I was a hot mess. I shook constantly. I had flashbacks. I barely slept for the next two years. Gee – I had forgotten all that, or at least put it aside, until this question this morning. I was deeply depressed and shocked, really struggling and unable to function.

It would have been the end of March that next year and I remember being just absolutely sick of being depressed and the constant struggle of it. Of feeling stuck. I wanted to just take off that coat and leave it behind. I felt very desperate, every day. This being the kind of silly thing I do, I pulled out a notebook and decided to come up with 100 ideas on how to break my depression in the month of April, hoping that if i shot for the moon, a few of those ideas would work. I was determined I would be feeling improved in a month. I could do a regimen for the month of April, if it meant I could have some relief, any relief, couldn’t I? 30 days?

So I tried all sorts of things for April. Exercise, intensive reading, Kavakava (I tried for medication but they put me on a wait list), guided journaling, trauma counselling I found online, changing my diet, I don’t even remember a fraction of all I tried, but what I do remember is one single thing stood out as being a light in the dark, and that was gratitude.

And I was terrible at it! hahahhaha. My goal was to come up with just TWO things in the day for which to be grateful, and usually I struggled just to find just the first one! I would sit there for an hour or more trying to come up with anything! It was if I was blind to gratitude and I was feeling around in the complete dark trying to find it. But while I was searching, I was at least not feeling sorry for myself or focusing on the pain of loss or feeling afraid, and slowly, things started to come… coffee, the aroma of it, the warmth of the cup in my hands, the taste on my tongue. The weather – that helped me so much! Whether sunny, snowy, dark and dreary, it was a never ending show and each day was different and lovely in it’s own way. I started noticing the birds outside my window, and April is a lovely month to watch the symphony of the tree leaves coming out of their buds… there are some lovely sugar maple trees just outside my bedroom window. It was there all along – the world. I just had been blinded.

Well April passed and I was better. It was a journey that continued, for sure and I did not practice gratitude every day of these last two decades, but more and more it has become natural. This year of Covid I knew was going to be a challenge, so I started in earnest again and entreated my friend to volley gratitudes with me each morning, and then very recently, I found this site.

This question reminded me of the stark difference between those days when staying alive and possibly getting dressed were my biggest ambitions…. to now.

Then, I thought I would be alone the rest of my life and never have family, and when my husband-to-be appeared, equally determined to restart his life, and he emigrated and brought with him his children, now my children – it was a miracle out of the blue. It has felt like God was looking out for me, and needed me to learn. The change in my life from dark to light could not have happened without gratitude and the willingness to take a chance on the next day.

hahaha… well I’m a wordy bird. I can’t seem to help myself. 🙂