Just when you thought nothing else could go wrong, 2020 hit hard. It’s been cruel and unrelenting.
Most recently we have another instance of a black man dying at the hands of a white police officer. It is an unfathomable thing to happen. And yet, here we are. Again.
I am heartbroken.
Again.
It’s easy to get sucked into the reliving of it all. The news cycle, the commentary. It’s a pot that won’t stop getting stirred.
There is a part of me where it feels good to let myself dive deep into the grief and anger. Similar to when my parents died, going into that grief is the right thing to do. It simultaneously feels awful and right.
Grief and anger are often combined. We ask the question why and there is no justifiable answer, so we start creating the emotion of anger. The anger is useful because it’s a big emotion that propels action.
In this case, we need action to be taken. We need to fight for justice. We need to keep saying this is not ok in a loud, raucous, union of voices until change is made.
But at some point, it becomes overwhelming.
And draining.
We can lose ourselves in grief and anger. When that happens, the emotions stop being effective and they become corrosive.
I’ll be honest, after a few days of this I felt hopeless and helpless.
Hopeless and helpless are two emotions that create zero action. They make nothing better. The longer I stayed there, the less I would do to make things better.
When I woke up again with that vague discomfort and pain in the background I knew I had to start digging my way out.
Gratitude is the Way Out
That morning I was struggling to find things I was grateful for. But I searched. All it took was one simple thought to start steering the ship in a different direction.
Joaquin was being loud in the morning because he’s seven and excited about life. But, in my state, I found it quite annoying. I was trying to sleep and struggling to find gratitude.
Then Phil gently asked him to be quiet, “mama’s sleeping.”
It was that small thing that I was then able to say, “I’m grateful that Phil asked Joaquin to be quiet.”
From there I was able to find four more things. I thanked the angels for being with me.
Then the tears came. I had been holding it in. The gratitude helped my emotions start to process. The gratitude helped me get unstuck. I let myself cry. And then it was like ok, I can do this.
Thank you.
Thank you.
Thank you.
This was the same practice that helped me through all the fear and anxiety that came with the pandemic. The simple practice of finding gratitude can be the little push you need to shift from a negative state to a better place where you can start to move forward.
Gratitude Challenge
In a year that has easily been the shittiest year ever and with Mercury Retrograde on the way, let’s do something to create stability instead. You can use this gratitude challenge as a way to amplify manifestation, a way to feel better, or as a way to change your mindset and be the kind of person you want to be.
Gratitude will get you aligned.
This is how we can start bringing light into the world.
Gratitude is the small practice that can be life changing.
Let’s take the month of June to be grateful everyday and hold each other accountable so we don’t fall off.
Gratitude Challenge Details
- 30 days in June.
- You will post 3-5 gratitudes a day, bonus for two times a day.
- We will attempt to stretch beyond the usual gratitudes by having topics.
- The exception to this is if you are working on manifesting something so you want to keep that one gratitude the same.
- It will take place on the Slack App, so all you have to do is open the app and type in your gratitudes.
If this sounds good to you, let me know in the comments, or send me an email. I will send you an invitation to the Slack channel.