In a dark place once, I felt utterly depressed; could not think of one thing I was grateful for. Not one. I hated where I was living in my sixth floor council flat, where I’d taken up the tiles leaving a bare, concrete floor in the lounge. It felt cold, looked freezing, like the night sky. I had no spiritual practice. I had isolated myself. I wasn’t working. I was on government ‘benefits’. I felt unable to work and bad for not working. Wretched is the word for it.
I had no real connection to myself, other people, or the things around me. I was in my head all the time, thinking, thinking, trying to solve myself. Wretched. With an eye roll, I decided I would try to write some things I felt grateful for. It’s so hard to feel gratitude when you’re in your head! I couldn’t just jump from trying to think my way out of my ‘shitty’ situation to feeling gratitude!
For me, gratitude emanates from my heart – a warm thrub that thumps its way through my whole body and radiates into the atmosphere and the intelligence of the universe. I know this now, of course, but back then I didn’t know it because I couldn’t feel my heart.
So I sat on my chair in my lounge with the cold, concrete floor, with a piece of paper and a pen poised to make a list of things I felt gratitude for, because people seemed to bang on about this practice. If I could tick this off then maybe something would change.
Nothing came to my mind. It was, in fact, the first time I could remember that I had no thoughts at all. I realised I was holding my breath waiting, so I took a deep breath. Still nothing. Not one thing could I think of. I felt like I was surviving and I did not feel grateful for that – I wasn’t even sure I wanted to survive.
Another deep breath. I remembered the takeaway I had the night before. The mint and yoghurt raita, the mango chutney, the lime pickle. The flavours that stimulated my senses in a comforting way (I didn’t know about eating as a way of stimming then). Mmmmm. I sank into the memory of it, eyes closed, then suddenly sat up and realised I could write it on my gratitude list.
An immediate inner conflict ensued, with one part of me exclaiming condiments was way too inconsequential to be on a gratitude list, and another, compassionate part saying, there’s no limit and no rules. I did feel grateful for the experience of these flavours. It was a tiny flicker of gratitude and I don’t think the effect lasted long but I remember it was a tiny eureka moment and that it made enough difference for me to want to practice it again.
I think this is the thing with practices – they have to be regular to build up and that’s hard when feeling disconnected. What I’ve found is okay though is irregular practice. Doing it for a bit, forgetting about it for a while, remembering and starting again. Sometimes life, for me anyway, can be a series of starting again (until the practice is embodied into my identity, but I think that might be a subject for another post). How about you?