Friday, August 30, 2013

The transforming of ingratitude

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.

Sunday, August 25, 2013

A Disarming Love



When we are faced with conflict, we have many different ways in which we can respond. With anger, frustration, sadness, compassion, aggression, love, tenderness, or any number of other responses. Lately I have been thinking about how we sometimes respond to conflict with love, and what a difference that can make.

A recent example of what can happen when someone responds with love comes from Georgia, where a bookkeeper thwarted a possible mass school shooting. Antoinette Tuff, the school employee, was inside the school building when the shooter walked in. They had a 10-minute conversation where she helped calm him down, discussed his options, and empathetically opened up to him about her own struggles in life. During that conversation, she was also able to communication with the 911 dispatcher and keep the policemen outside so that she could deescalate the situation. She spoke to him with compassion ("We all go through something in life. You're gonna be okay.") and also with love. "I just explained to him that I loved him. I didn't know his name, but I loved him." You can watch the video here.

Thinking of responding with love, I recently read an article in Scientific American Mind about our negative self-talk. How should we respond to that negative voice? The author, Eleanor Longden, suggested that we treat negative self-talk compassionately, because it usually comes from a place of trauma or of deep pain. She experienced negative self-talk and even heard voices, and instead of responding with more negativity, she explored where it was coming from and responded with love until she didn't experience that kind of self-talk anymore. If I tell myself, "I'm stupid" or "I'm not worthy enough," that may come from a past experience that convinced me of those harmful ideas about myself. Instead of ignoring it or experiencing inner conflict, I can say, "I am worthy, I am loved, but there is a part of me that must still doubt it. Let me explore that so I can heal it from within, with compassion and love." Even the negative self-talk, which I reactively respond to with animosity and aggression, can be treated with love and turned around.

In my own life, there have been a few times where I was having a conflict with a friend and they responded with love, and it completely diffused the situation. In one instance about 6 years ago, a friend and I were talking on the phone, and I was incredibly upset about something. I was emotional, I wasn't thinking rationally, and being in the conversation was like watching a train wreck. But the entire time, my friend was calm and was just listening to what I had to say. And then she gently said:

"Katie, I need to tell you something."
"Okay... what?"
"I love you."

Suddenly the train stopped in its tracks. I took a deep breath and felt so loved in that moment that I didn't have anything else to say. At a time in that friendship where I was being pretty unlovable, definitely not being my highest self, she showed me that I was actually still lovable and that she loved me. We all make mistakes, we all say things we shouldn't say at some point in our lives, and her loving response brought me out of the grave I was digging for myself and up to a place of love and compassion. It was an amazing experience. The other experience I had was a different scenario but similar in the amount of stress present in the conversation, where I came out to my best friend when I was 20 years old. I thought that she was going to end our friendship, or that she was going to be upset or feel uncomfortable around me. I was terrified to tell her. And when I did, her response was simply, "You're my best friend. That's it." Not the response I had expected, but the best one possible, and a reaffirmation that the love was still present and that all was well.

In turn, when I respond in love to someone who is angry or panicked, it tends to soothe the situation. It turns what was seemingly going downhill into a much better outcome. Incorporating love and compassion and tenderness into difficult situations seems to make a huge difference. Even when caring for myself, if I treat myself with tenderness and love, I respond so much better. Instead of becoming angry with myself, I feel loved, I feel confident, and I feel worthy. I don't need to get these messages from anyone else because they are self-generated. And when I treat myself with love and care, I am more productive, happy, and hopeful, because I am not working against myself as often happens with negative self-talk.

Love is transformative. It can turn seemingly dire circumstances around, it can heal conflicts in relationships, and it can diffuse and soothe tense situations. When there is a conflict, it is amazing to see what happens when love is interjected into the situation.