Finding Gratitude

People often ask why I get up so early, and I will tell you this…in the morning, in between midnight and dawn, there is a beautiful quiet. It is filled with all of the potential of a new day with none of the worry or flutter. It is a time of immense peace.

This morning at 3, for example, I did my yoga outside, under veiled stars, listening to the waves in the Sound, the bell buoy chiming, the unseen visitor in the yard stepping through autumn leaves. It was a blessing.

The only drawback to being an early rise occurs on days like today, when news headlines arrive in my sightline hours before many of you wake for the day.

And so this morning, I had the distressing task of holding the news by myself, its weight bearing on my chest so much I could barely breathe, its implications making my entire body numb.

The only glimmer was an email sitting in my In Box from an organization called Grateful Living. I’ve read it and read it again, and feel, deep deep inside a sense of the direction I must go. Of where I must travel now to find my way past the despair and grief of this day and this time in history.

Perhaps it is too soon for you. Or perhaps this is just what you need to get you through today…

“The end of an election season does not return a fractured society to civility. There does not exist an on and off switch to suddenly pivot us in the right direction after we’ve come this far. The more something is destroyed the longer it takes to rebuild. And rebuilding is the work of our time. This is the work of living gratefully.

Well before this election season began, we lost sight of what is most sacred for our survival: our shared humanity. We seem to have forgotten our interdependence and, as a result, have divided ourselves up by teams, where there are winners and losers. What is happening in communities across the globe is contrary to gratefulness.

The practice of grateful living teaches us that in order to reach our fullest capabilities as humans, we need to prepare banquet tables large enough to include those with divergent perspectives and lived experiences so that we might better understand. Instead, we find ourselves huddled around bistro tables where we can only hear those closest to us — those who think and live like us, those who value what we value. How are we to repair our communities and build a world worthy of our descendants if we don’t seek understanding? 

Fear is our greatest barrier to understanding because it separates us. It is a tool for distraction. We can no longer see clearly when we are terrified. We only see two paths: fight or flee. This is where gratitude goes to die because we can no longer perceive the abundant gifts life has to offer. Rather than being a people of possibility — a hopeful people — we become narrow, stingy, and impotent with scarcity guiding our hearts. 

The pervasiveness of fear is not new to humanity or these times. Fear and tribalism have always been present in the human story, but gratefulness is resistance to fear. It moves us forward and helps us pursue more compassionate and inclusive communities of belonging, where every human can arrive welcomed and worthy rather than discarded…. 

The work ahead for all of us will not be easy, but it begins by opening our hearts rather than sealing them off out of fear and disappointment — this is our grateful resistance in a time of othering.”

This was written by Joe Primo, CEO, Grateful Living. You can read more of the essay and learn more about Grateful Living here.

For now, and this morning, and this week, month, year…please know that I love you and am grateful for your presence in my life.