Gratitude
They say gratitude is a trait that helps you feel more confident in life, but where does the feeling of gratitude come from and how do you learn to see the richness in your existence?
This article is a follow-up to this blog post and is part of a series on how I got more confident in the flow of life.
As I sit here in 2023, rereading this post from 2020, knowing that I didn’t take the time last month to edit it and push publish, I know gratitude is a thing that we all still need learning.
Instead of screaming at myself, beating me up for not even for a minute putting my butt in the chair, I am very grateful for the month of August.
Yes it was busy with a volunteer (we take Wwoofers!), yes it was too hot in the afternoon to even point a finger at my laptop, yes it is a dry year and the water is short so we need to do with less.
But, reading this post from three years ago it also makes me feel very grateful. To see how far I have come, how I love where I live now and that that in a way is exactly where I dreamt of when I left my life un the US.
So with no further ado, here is my take on how you can find gratitude for the richness in your existence:
This week marks four years since I left behind my life and my marriage in America. In a split second, I made the decision to leave. It was the result of a period of manipulation and confusion. When that came to a violent climax, there was no more doubt. I am leaving.
At that moment, I had absolutely no idea where to go. I was lost. A dear friend offered me a room where I could stay for the time being, recover and sort things out. Within three weeks after that explosion, I flew back to the Netherlands.
That one second puzzled me for a long time. It was as if it was not me who made the decision. The other in me was a very firm person, there was no discussion possible and there was no turning back. Despite the pain and sadness of the people I left behind there.
On the plane to the Netherlands, I felt the distance between me and my old life widen, but I also left a deep crater, a no-man's land, empty and dead.
I dragged that crater with me for a long time. Through guilt, through fear, through pain. Not only the pain of those I left there in that one second, but also the pain of the road towards that explosive moment. The crater was full of my guilt over my manipulative behaviour and allowing that of others.
My great sense of responsibility over the whole situation asked me to take a hard look at myself. After all, I am someone who likes to resolve everything in a loving and peaceful way. So why did I run away like crazy from my life in America? I barely explained, I didn't say goodbye to anyone exuberantly. I foolishly just fled.
I knew instinctively that the solution lay in healing that crater. And I knew that could only be done with self-love. But first I had to choose a new direction. Staying where I was, was not an option. SO I started the Camino de Santiago. And after the Camino, I wanted to remain a pilgrim even longer. Wander more, discover new places and learn other ways of living.
I decided to go traveling as a voluteer through Workaway. Every two monthes I changed place, bed and people.
Because of that choice, I had a life that was much less stable, where I had to deal with my own grief in unfamiliar places while also just having my voluntary work there and living in community with strange others.
But I learned that others can actually be enormously concerned about me. That they come looking for me when I'm not back on my bike by sundown. Or that they send me back to bed if I look like a mop in the morning and take me to a session with singing bowls because they think it's something for me. While at the time, I felt like the worst person on earth.
So this, in addition to acceptance, began my exercise in gratitude.
"Recognising the good you already have in your life is the basis for all abundance." - Eckhart Tolle
Gratitude is about contentment, appreciation and wonder. It is acknowledging what you have, receiving something that is given to you and seeing the special in where you are.
But this is not something I just shook out of my sleeve and did. Sure, I once learned the words 'thank you', but to be grateful with my whole being for what I have or receive, 'good' or 'bad', is a hundred times harder than saying thank you to that birthday present.
So how then?
Real deep, genuine gratitude requires some traits that are not readily available in my backpack. They are just those things that society does not teach me.
Gratitude requires me to be in the now and in the moment. To be present to where I am, what is given to me and to accept this with full attention.
Gratitude asks me to open my heart. Only with an open heart can I accept without judgement the gift and love that is given to me.
Gratitude asks me to let myself be touched. When my heart is open, I am in touch with my emotions and feelings. What is given to me can touch and awaken them. Daring to show them gives gratitude its depth.
Gratitude also asks me to realise that everything is finite, that nothing stays the same and that change is the only stable factor in life.
Gratitude then also asks me to accept, to have no judgement and to know that wrong or right do not exist.
Well that's all very nice when I look out over that immense sea after a days walk or harvest a basket full of red tomatoes. Of course it is important for me to practise gratitude, as Eckhart Tolle says, to see the richness around me. But being grateful for my own mistakes and actions is quite another thing.
"In everything there is a crack. That's where the light comes in."- Leonard Cohen
Still, seeing the richness in my darkest moments was an important step in the process of my healing. Discovering what gift my actions of four years ago gave me was like following a small point of light to the way out of that crater.
I found that when I can be grateful for where I am broken, my imperfections are not a fault, but rather of gold.
The artform Kintsugi is a Japanese tradition in which people repair broken objects with gold. For me, this principle carries everything of gratitude. It is a beautiful way of appreciating what you have by making it even more valuable in its broken state than it was whole. But above all, it shows a very important aspect of gratitude: Love for what is.
On the road to more confidence, being grateful for what is, in yourself and beyond, is an important step. But for me it was also seeing help was always there, that people cared about me and that I was 'caught' when I fell.
Being grateful for that made me feel a less bad person, more worthy of being me.
In the next post, I will delve into the theme of letting go. If you want to make sure you don't miss my latest posts, subscribe here:
Liefs,
Daphne
Read more about it here or google pictures of Kintsugi and marvel at the beauty of broken things. The perfect imperfection.