Blog #11 - Part 2 - Gratitude Returns!

Awareness. Step 1.

Focusing on what I was feeling, instead of what I wasn’t feeling was when the ship started to turn.

I’ve been at this a while now – why didn’t I flick the switch sooner? I didn’t want to look at the fear. I felt like I had seen enough, faced enough, experienced enough fear and uncertainty and I was too exhausted to apply the energy required to shift the funk.

Then I remembered my Masters Thesis. The crux of my research. The shift I look for in my clients, my recovery mentees and in myself to evaluate our collective progress. The question I asked of the great minds of psychology, philosophy, art and science – When our physical, emotional and psychological resources are depleted, when we think we have absolutely nothing left – can spirituality uplift us? Pick up the weight and carry us forward?

Sometimes, taking the time to rest and replenish is simply not an option. We don’t have the bandwidth or resources for retreats or rehab. Bi-weekly therapy, coaching or a personal trainer. We must use what we stand up in.

Our human resources are finite. Fact.

I wanted to know if the somewhat misunderstood benefits of true spirituality – which is not, strictly speaking, a human resource, could be harnessed and leveraged at our lowest points. I had seen it work time and time again in recovery and it had worked for me when I followed sensible suggestions and practices.

With hardly any gas left in the tank, I stared at my fear and uncertainty. Unwavering. Unblinking.

Fuck you, Fear. Fear didn’t get me this far. Faith did.

‘Faith without works is dead’ says the Big Book of Alcoholics Anonymous. In other words, ‘Faith without action leads to nothing and nowhere’. I have quoted it before and will quote it again. ‘If it is not practical, it’s not spiritual’.

I have studied fear. In myself and in all my relationships and environments. Fear has a lot to answer for. On an individual level, fear could be measured by the amount of inaction one takes or is prepared to take towards their ‘potential’. We don’t need to know what that is. We all have it. The further forward we move, the more actions we take and experience we accumulate, the clearer that potential becomes.

Of course, this would require some rigorous honesty. No one really wants to admit, let alone share their deepest fears.

I have become weary of the narrative of my experience over the last eighteen months and the mechanisms that put me in that position. I became willing to let go of the story and the associated labels, to move on to the next phase. What I have been experiencing is the so-called ‘messy-middle’. The transition. A next level awakening perhaps?

I am also tired of my core fears. I worked these out carefully during my Step 4, nearly six years ago. I experienced a jarring deflation of my ego as I realized with total clarity, my own part in my relational difficulties. Where pride, self-seeking and selfish motivations may have been at work.

I was rebuilding my personality, piece by piece on stronger and more sustainable foundations. Parenting myself and guided by kind and loving fellow humans and an ever-present Higher Power.

(Remember, our personalities are clusters of thoughts, feelings and behaviours – the more flexible the personality, the healthier, the human.)

In light of my missing gratitude, my fear was understandable. Fear of losing everything – again! Fear I had made wrong turns and bad decisions. Fear of financial insecurity. Fear of success and fear of failure, fighting for my attention as they paradoxically pirouetted around my experience.

Dark thoughts accompany fear in its assault on our cognitive and physiological systems. Cold creeps into our world. ‘A cold, chill of fear arose within her’ or ‘An icy hand gripped her heart.’ ‘Darkness assailed her, as she fought the fear rising within her’. Cold and dark are always used to describe fear.

And yet, neither cold nor dark, exist.

Cold is the absence of heat and dark is the absence of light.

(Please refer to the laws of physics and Newton’s laws for confirmation of this statement and allow for the subjectivity of human perception)

How do we fight fear? With faith. How do we cultivate faith? We take the next right action.

The awareness came first. My daily research-based Gratitude Intervention had also slipped. ‘3 Little Things’ is a simple exercise proven to create lasting positive affect.

1)      Take a walk. (In any environment that is available. Ideally, out in nature for the best results)

2)      During the walk, take pictures of three things that delight and inspire you to a sense of gratitude for their existence.

3)      Write about those three little things each day for 4 days. What you saw, how you felt, what it meant to you etc.

4)      Enjoy the upward spiral of positive emotions from experiencing the feelings of gratitude! Consider it the emotional equivalent of the Wim Hoff Method!

I like efficiency and effectiveness, so I use this intervention as my content creation strategy for my social media. It is the content of the photos that provoke emotions in myself and others and my personal experience of them is used in the captions for others to identify with. This had to come back into my routine.

It was the staring down of fear that brought back my gratitude. That I even had the capacity to look at it and prepare to do battle, yet again for my future. Realising that perhaps, my faith was being tested. I am exactly where I wanted and planned to be. Faith got me here. Fear was trying to tell me, it was all going to be taken away.

Which voice was I going to listen to? I looked at my surroundings, Jonnie, my vision board and the signs and synchronicities which swirled around me. There could be no doubt, in light of such overwhelming evidence that I am presently in the right place, at the right time, by design. A co-created design.

Something shifted again as I stepped into this life instead of fearing it would be snatched away. Conversations, contacts, opportunities, unexpected visitors and an abundance of new friends. Jonnie has never seemed calmer and more content in her new circumstances. Did she get the memo first or did I?

As I carefully unpacked the last bags and boxes, I pulled out a beautiful porcelain jug I wanted to put in my guest room. Tucked inside were my linen pillowcases, lovingly ironed and protecting something I valued. I also discovered my Moroccan orbs packed with care alongside the pre-war coke bottles collected from my wreck dives and shells from dives all over the world.

I hadn’t lost or carelessly discarded these things. They were just waiting until they were sought. Like my gratitude.

Can what doesn’t exist harm me? It’s up to me to decide not to allow it. Fear no longer has my attention and faith does.

Hello, upward spiral!

We would love to hear how you experience and cultivate gratitude. Do share your thoughts in the comments and give '3 Little Things' a try!

Peace & Love,

Elizabeth & Jonnie

Colombiere-sur-Orb. A pre-birthday gorge dip with Jonnie!