Could cultivating "gratitude" be a way to admonish ourselves for wanting more?  Could striving for more be a refusal to see what is perfect about the here-and-now? 

 

I wrote a blog post about my own experience of gratitude here and what it feels like to be grateful.  As you know from my last muse-letter, I am a kinesthetic person.  The way that I 'get stuff' or integrate what I learn is in my body.  So, I think of cultivating gratitude as a physical experience more than an intellectual exercise.  

 

When we get caught up in the gratitude games, it might feel like if you can't rattle off a happy list, you aren't doing gratitude right.  Or you are not seeing your privilege.  Or you lack perspective.  Maybe that is also true.  

 

But I wonder if part of the difficulty lies in what we feel versus what we think.  Perhaps if we played around with what people, events, losses, or hardships we have experienced, and how they sculpted and refined us to be exactly who we are, we might feel gratitude.  

 

You will have to do your own work on this one, but when I feel grateful, it's not necessarily for the 'good' stuff.  It's actually for many situations and people who have challenged me and cut me to the core.  Especially now.  

 

Next time someone asks you what you are grateful for, stop for a moment and see if a different cast of characters could take the stage.

 

#gratitudegames #gratitudenotplatitude

 

Take care of your sculpted and grateful hearts, Sunita