What is Gratitude: How I learned to be Grateful - My 'Positive Journal' Experience Day 2

I often become uncomfortable when people give me gifts or do things for me because I feel like there is a certain response I am then obliged to present in return. I never know if the giver of the gift or the doer of the favour is expecting this type of response or not, and there have been a few occasions where I was un-emotive about things I had received, and then those around me made it clear through jokes and comments, that this lack of a reaction on my behalf was unexpected and inappropriate. This made me feel ashamed and ungrateful as I had not had a certain positive feeling experience within myself that I was apparently supposed to have.

What I did over time to cope with this dynamic was to fake the positive feeling experience with my sound, my smile and my words - and each time I did this, I felt like I was betraying some part of me, presenting the false front to the gift giver in order to manipulate them into also now having a positive feeling of being appreciated, whatever other rewards as positive experience one might expect   when giving a gift.

In my 'Positive Journal' today I was asked to list three big things I am grateful for. Immediately I was struck by an emptiness, a feeling of 'the expectation to feel something I don't actually feel' and the burden to now conjure up some emotion, which often makes me feel like I 'm somehow cheating on myself through betraying myself and what I am actually going through. I thought to myself, "how ungrateful am I? How spoiled must I be to feel such little gratitude for anything at all? So I stopped in order to ask myself, "What is gratitude to me?".

I looked up the word 'gratitude' and found that most definitions in fact did involve invoking some kind of positive feeling, and some kind of giving back in return - which is exactly how I had been unsuccessfully living the word gratitude, where my living of the word means the the 'giving' is never unconditional, because as soon as I live 'gratitude' that means I must now do/be something in return, and if not then the whole thing is a bust and a disappointment. So I see that I had been living the system-accepted, consciousness version of the word gratitude, but I knew within myself that there was more to it than that.

So I took a moment, silenced my mind, and brought through MY experience of 'gratitude' up into my body, and I just sat with it. What came up was not a positive feeling at all - it was as if a bottomless abyss opened up right in the core of me, and I was deeply humbled at the vastness and expansiveness of this space, like falling forever, knowing there is nothing I could ever do to fill this space or close it up - that an attempt to repay or match the things I am grateful for would be so futile and silly, like trying to fill the ocean with a teaspoon - and yet within it all was also a deep and profound sense of shame.

As I sat with this, an image of my family popped into my head. I was reminded of the process of forgiveness and self-forgiveness I had walked over the years using the Desteni tools in relation to my family, wherein I worked on releasing the emotional points I had been holding in place since I was very young. This means, not only forgiving the family member, but also forgiving myself mostly in terms of the role I played in the creation and holding on to the point, keeping it in place not only for myself, but for everyone.

What had emerged afterwards in working with this family-point was again a deep sense of shame and humility, as I could then more clearly see not only the sacrifice my parents went through to raise me, put a roof over my head, feed me, send me to school, take care of my health, my teeth, etc... but also how they had consistently over time, been there for me, even when they didn't necessarily agree with the paths I had chosen. I always felt so secure in knowing that, no matter what happened in my life, I would have a warm bed to sleep in and a meal to eat in my parent's home, so secure in fact, that it never even occurred to me that it could be any other way, and so I never even explored being grateful for it.

From this new position came 'appreciation' - which is a recognition and enjoyment of the good qualities of someone or something, as well as a full understanding of a situation. After having walked a process of self-forgiveness, and within that also forgiving others, I was able to more clearly understand the entire situation, and recognize and enjoy those qualities in my parents that they lived in order to bring up a family and a daughter in this world, giving me a foundation from which to stand.

The next step I took in walking this process of forgiveness/self-forgiveness leading to gratitude towards my parents, was to express it to them, tell them about it, let them know what I see and how I experience it. Not in a big emotional show or display of affection, but in normal, natural moments when it would come up in me in moments spent with them, or maybe in a card, or over the phone. Not all at once, but bit-by-bit, over time, taking my time with each piece, carefully forming it within myself, wherein it then became easily articulated it in moments of opportunity, where it was so unconditional, so natural, easy and flowing, that they may not have even recognized it as gratitude until later upon reflection, that is, if it even occurred to them to reflect upon it! But that doesn't even matter, because I was speaking unconditionally something that was already whole within myself, that didn't require recognition or validation from another to complete. I think the sharing of gratitude is important, because oftentimes when people do not take the time to recognize, appreciate and live gratitude towards people in their lives, or don't speak or express it, often live with great regret if that person leaves their lives or passes away.

So builds my living definition of the word 'grateful', now with the words: 'humility' and 'recognition', 'unconditional', 'appreciation', 'enjoyment', 'sharing' and even, maybe surprisingly: 'shame'.

And so, my living re-definition of 'Gratitude' is:

To humbly and unconditionally recognize and share the appreciation and enjoyment in relation to the act of giving and/or receiving.  With 'shame' acting as that reminder of how little gratitude and unconditional giving/receiving actually exists in this world and within ourselves, even towards ourselves. Until that time where unconditional living exists, for me personally, I will always be reminded of my own shame, using it constructively to support me in my personal process of change.

In terms of what I wrote in my journal for the three big things I am most grateful for, after having re-defined the living word, here it is:

I am grateful for my family and everything they have done to support me to be able to be here.

I am grateful for the fact the Desteni exists, and to everything and everyone that made/makes it possible.

I am grateful for the Physical/Life/the Animals/Mother Nature/the Sky for being Here unconditionally, and for standing for and as Life.

Day 31- Quitting Love- No Sense of Self

            This blog post is a continuation of my post titled “What is Left After Love?” As I continue to walk through letting go of my addiction to ‘love,’ which extends beyond only relationship/romantic ‘love,’ to all forms of what I believed and had defined myself according to what I thought was ‘love.’ It’s not love, and I don’t know what to call the experience I used to define as ‘love.’ It was an experience I would create within me, a positive energetic experience that I sought in all relationships, which I completely compromised myself in order to obtain from these relationships, based on feedback which I would interpret and then react to within myself as the experience  of ‘love.’

            But, as I said, it was not love. It was absolute disregard for Who I Really Am, which, leaves me feeling just kind of empty and lost. But at some core place within me, I’m okay. It’s similar to when I quit weed and alcohol, wherein, because I was not receiving the ‘highs,’ I immediately wanted to interpret the experience as a ‘low,' wherein I was left feeling like, "what do I do now."  But then I slowly realized that “I’m okay,” “I’m still Here.”

  Yet, I am not completely Here, as I must quit and let go of all my inner energetic feeling and emotional experiences because now I see them for what they are: absolute self-compromise. The crazy thing is, looking back, it’s like I knew it all along. I was aware of every time I manipulated, converted and contorted myself to fit a role, gain an experience, or please myself or another. Every time I diminished myself, went into superiority or lied to myself about who I was… I knew. And I still know.

            So, now the decision has to be made: who will I be? I guess that’s the big question. In looking for an answer to that question, I look to the only thing that has been consistent, supportive and unconditional, which is my breath and my physical body. These are ‘parts of’ me that have never abused or compromised me. Only myself as my mind has done that. I’m like this little passenger in this vessel, and the vessel has been my life-support, but my whole life I have judged it, abused it (literally), been ashamed of it, or flaunted it as if it were my possession. It is not my possession, it is all that I am, thus, it is so much greater than me as a passenger, who has not honoured it.  Yet it is absolutelyequal to all other physical substance that’s Here. That is a concept that we passengers find hard to grasp, because we so badly want to be the stars of the show and have it be ‘all about us.’ But we are absolutely dependent upon our vessels, and in fact, they are the only thing that is real about any of us.

            So, forgiveness on this point is at the same time long overdue and only possible now.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to compromise and abuse myself as my physical body, as I as ‘the passenger’ as my mind took absolute control and subjugated my body instead of realizing it is/was the only thing about me that has ever been real.

I forgive myself that I have NOT accepted or allowed myself to honour my body in/for every moment that it has unconditionally supported me, which is in every breath.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to think/believe/perceive that I as a mind am/was the star of the show, that my internal experience of myself was all that mattered, and then judged my body as ‘less than, ‘shameful,’ and ‘imperfect.’

I forgive myself that I have not accepted and allowed myself to see/realize and understand that my physical body is perfect, because it is exactly what it is supposed to be- physical matter/substance, and the only imperfections are those which I have caused due to abuse over time, conditioning and habits.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to also have participated within the polarity of judging my body as ‘beautiful,’ ‘sexy,’ and ‘seductive,’ etc… and then limited myself by defining myself according to these judgments, judgments which shifted and changed from day to day, thus causing me to experience ups and downs, and instead of stopping my participation within these polarity cycles, I blamed my body.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to blame my physical body for my negative internal experiences, wherein I would cause myself to pump myself full of chemicals associated with shame and self-loathing, causing my body to endure such chemical and energetic rushes which takes away from it as it I abused it to support my fleeting emotions and feelings.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to waste my physical body as I slowly accept and allow myself to waste away, instead of realizing that I was wasting the only thing I ever really was for that which I never really was, which is experience- fleeting and limited.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to fear to lose that which I never really had, for that which I already am.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to value that which destroys me.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to believe myself to be that which destroys me, so thoroughly that I became it, and thus continued to destroy me, as myself.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to continue to believe, and to base who I am upon beliefs and ideas, ideals and fantasy, instead of looking at the actual reality that is Here, wherein it is all so obvious and the evidence and signs of it are everywhere, yet in it, as it, I couldn’t see it.

When and as I see myself looking for experience out of fear of ‘not knowing what else to do,’ ‘who to be,’ or ‘who I am without roles,’ I stop, and I breathe. I bring myself back into awareness within the understanding that I am still okay, I am still Here, and I will always have me, within and as each breath. I remind myself that it’s okay to not know who/how to be, and it’s better to do nothing than to try/attempt to be what I’m not for the sake of experience.

I commit myself to continue opening my eyes, and to teach myself about that which is actually Here, by looking, seeing, realizing and understanding, and giving myself the platform of self-support that can provide through writing, self-forgiveness and self-corrective application.

I commit myself to walking this process into the physical, because now I truly see what a sham it all is/was/has been and will continue to be if we keep on ‘living’ the way we are currently accepting and allowing ourselves to love.

I commit myself to honour and move within and as my physical body in every moment of breath.

I remind myself:

One step at a time

I am Here

In every moment