Gratitude can suck it
appreciation is where it's at
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Hmm I have a couple of seedlings of newsletter topics floating in my head, curious about what’s going to happen here. Forgive me if this is a little messy.
Right now, I’m feeling the sun on my face and arms for the first time this year. Spring is sprung, I have some hyacinths (gma’s fav) and tulips blooming in my unkempt garden.
This week I was forced to take things a lot slower than what my ego wanted. I’ve been in this creative surge as you know and letting that go this week was challenging. Not being able to seize the moment of inspiration can be confronting in itself, sometimes I’m left scared that it may never revisit me. But I know that to be a false belief now. I got tons of writing done so much so that I didn’t really know what I was going to say here. I guess I don’t always have to say something, I guess I have so much I haven’t said that it needs to get out.
Sitting here in the sun I’m reminded that the feeling of the sun on my skin is the same feeling I get with appreciation.
I focused so many years on feeling bad about myself for not being grateful enough, or grateful in general. What I’m learning is that gratitude is a byproduct of looking at my life honestly. Before, the gratitude I had came in the form of morning pages and forced gratitude lists. Those activities never stuck and man did I let myself have it for them not sticking.
Gratitude as a word just screams bypass to me now. “OH, you want me to be grateful for this life I feel victim to? Fuck you.” My gratitude lists felt like I was grasping at straws and going through the motions of what people who ‘were better at life’ than me were doing.
I understand now how those people got to a place to say how important gratitude is. I had to explore why I was so discontent with my life to see what beauty had brought me there. The beauty of going toward the fire instead of away, the beauty of seeing new leaves sprouting from the ash, stronger than before.
Boy, oh boy is my first instinct to run. To me running shows a lack of strength to hold an uncomfortable emotion, in this case life at large. Sounds harsh as I type it, but it’s true. If I’m unable to hold or handle my life in a way that makes me feel good, how the fuck am I supposed to exhibit ‘feel good’ emotions(ie gratitude).
So I say fuck gratitude and how shamed it makes me feel when I don’t have it. Seeing the beauty of life is appreciating life. Appreciating my life is my gratitude list, damn it.
Whatever it takes to appreciate the life before me is what I need to focus on, not the lack of a quality that I have no room to understand. This week that meant listening, slowing down, and seeing that peace is a choice again.
I lived a life I felt victim to, I lived a life that I didn’t know I wasn’t giving myself the option to choose. I get to choose now. I choose peace. I choose a life of ease. I choose myself.
Ps. This newsletter was a hybrid of all of those ideas I had at the start of this, how fun!
Pps. I did a Headspace meditation pack on appreciation that was really juicy and nice, use this link to get a 30-day guest pass if you’ve never used Headspace before!
Personally: Learning about the language my body communicates to me.
Art: So much in the noggin, getting as much out as I can!
Work: Got a few irons in the fire for what my direction will be here, excited to find out.
Purpose: Learning more and more about guiding and not giving advice. Sometimes I give passive advice by sharing my life experiences, which leads to oversharing and generally yucky vibes.
IDK! Stay tuned!
Thank you, you mean more to me than you know,
Alex