I was feeling down the past couple of days. I have been having some pain in my back for quite some time (over 2 years now), and have been unable to find the cause or the solution. I have prayed, I have talked with professionals, I have had CT scans, and nothing has relieved the pain, or even shed light on the situation. But finally, a couple of days ago, I went to see a specialist, and he saw what it was that has been causing me so much pain. He offered a couple of solutions, both pretty intense, but said that it could most likely be remedied with one of those options.
After I left his office, I could feel a sadness washing over me. Instead of feeling grateful that after 2+ years, I finally had some idea of what was wrong and what I could do to fix it, I was feeling bitter about the "diagnosis." I felt the methods of getting to the place of healing were too intense, especially when it was only "most likely" going to be a healing, not a 100% guarantee. I had been hoping that it was going to be a quick fix, just simply popping my spine back into place or something of that sort. I was feeling resentful that the physical therapist indicated that a car accident I had 5 years ago was the most likely cause of this pain, and that it had taken a couple of years for the symptoms to catch up to me. I was feeling angry that something as brief and as unlucky as an accident could cause years of pain, especially when the accident wasn't even my fault. And even though I wasn't at fault, I was still the one who was going to have to either suffer with the aftermath of it or go through intense rehabilitation to get better. It felt incredibly unfair.
The interesting thing is, right after I had the car accident (like, a second after my car stopped spinning across I-5), my first feeling was one of extreme gratitude. I was so grateful to be alive, as while my car was careening through 4 lanes of rush-hour traffic, I had thought that that was it. My life flashed before my eyes, I was terrified, and then a few seconds later, I realized I was still alive by the grace of God. And I was SO GRATEFUL. I remember stepping out of my car and pinching myself, checking to see if I was in a dream or if I was in fact still alive. Even though my back and neck muscles were a little sore, I felt like jumping for joy. I wrote about this miraculous experience here.
But in the past couple of days, that gratitude seemed to disappear. Instead of feeling grateful for life and for experiencing all that I have experienced in the past 5 years because I have been alive, I felt hopeless and sad. Where did all the gratitude go for the gift of life that I realized was indeed a gift on the day of the accident all those years ago?
Today, as I was resenting the car accident, I realized that life is complex. Life is short, but also, it is infinite. This material picture is not all there is to life; it doesn't end here when our physical bodies are no more. And on my best days when I am striving to be my highest self, I know that each day is a gift, and each day after the car accident is a day that, for that split second, I didn't think I was ever going to see. It made me view the conversation with the physical therapist a bit differently, and thus it made me feel so much gratitude for life and for all that I have experienced. Instead of feeling ingratitude for what I have to deal with now in the accident aftermath, I suddenly felt grateful for the gift of the past 5 years, and gratitude for all that I have yet to experience because I am alive.
A similar but completely different experience happened a few weeks ago with a friend of mine. The prominent feeling in this friendship, the feeling I have most when I think about this person, is gratitude. I am so grateful they are in my life and so grateful that God felt it fit to cross our paths. But for a few months earlier this year, I started to feel some ingratitude towards this person. Because I could feel this ingratitude seeping in, I decided to start writing a gratitude list, reasons I was grateful for this person. And once I started writing the list, I realized that I had developed an expectation in the friendship a few months prior, and that was skewing the normal gratitude gauge. Once I figured out the ingratitude was coming from the expectation, I eradicated the expectation and all was back to normal. Well, actually, I now feel even more grateful for this person than I ever have, but I think that is because gratitude begets gratitude. And once you start expressing gratitude, there is more in life to be grateful for. It's a wonderful cycle.
The gratitude I feel for this friend has some similarities to the gratitude I feel at being alive. Because I am so grateful for this person in my life, because I have had the opportunity to hang out with this person and talk with them and love them and enjoy their company, feeling any sense of ingratitude doesn't even make any sense. The gratitude of just having this person in my life renders all other expectations or feelings of ingratitude irrelevant. Ridiculous, even.
In both scenarios, I have been given a gift, and in these 2 situations, I momentarily forgot the blessings they offered. And I am so grateful that both times, God pointed me in the direction of what the true essence of each situation was: the love, the gift, the elements of every situation that I am so grateful for, to the exclusion of every other feeling.
Gratitude is a game-changer. Completely turns around the way I look at my circumstances, and replaces resentment or expectations or ingratitude with the sense that I feel so complete, so blessed, and that my cup runneth over.
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