I’m Kate, a psychotherapist writing about personal growth, for you to flourish in a life you love! Upgrade here for the Bloom Sessions, The Soulful Metamorphosis series, the Heal Your Past series and to support my work! 🤍
Gratitude that Lights the Dark ✨
Hi friends
When Otis Redding lost everything, had nowhere to turn, and nothing to live for, he later wrote about it as he sat on the famous dock of the bay.
I left my home in GeorgiaHeaded for the Frisco Bay'Cause I've had nothing to live forAnd look like nothing's gonna come my waySo, I'm just gon' sit on the dock of the bayWatchin' the tide roll away, oohI'm sittin' on the dock of the bayWastin' time
What is There to Be Grateful For?
The power of practicing gratitude is splashed across the internet like tiny flowers growing from cracks in the tarmac as you wait for the bus on a rainy Monday morning.
But how can you feel grateful when you’ve just been dumped? Or your family don’t appreciate you. Maybe you’re in pain, and no-one seems to care. Your daughter says there are paedos in the Library, and is that mould growing up there? Why am I so tired all the time? Why will no one buy my stuff? And anyway, the world is in chaos and we are all going to die, so what’s the point?
Maybe for you, gratitude can just f*ck right off, and take Otis’ insufferable ear-worm and this post with it. I have no argument with this if it’s working for you.
Looks like nothing's gonna changeEverything still remains the sameI can't do what ten people tell me to doSo I guess I'll remain the same … Otis Redding
Changing The Story
Taking care of our mental health needs work because not only did all those shitty things happen to us, our modern, global, news-informed life is totally unnatural. It is not what we evolved for: the whole world is too big for our small brains. The internet imposes impossible expectations on us. Many of us lost the care of ‘the village’ generations ago, and we may never have had our emotional needs met.
After Pandora did the biggest oops in mythological history, she watched in terror as all evil spiralled from the box she had opened and out into the skies and across the world.
Her regret may well have lit with gratitude when hope glinted out from the bottom of the box.
Our minds are unruly, though adaptive. We have agency over how we see and respond to life’s happenings. Yes, there is loads do, and conversations to have, and no, life isn’t fair. All those things happened and are happening, but you can face it all better when you’re enveloped in the shimmering swirls of your own gratitude.
We can recalibrate our minds negativity bias (maybe you heard that our mind sees things six times worse than they are). This evolved to keep us safe, though most of us are safer than our inner lizard-brain self knows. Gratitude is one way to let it know.
It is better to light a candle than to curse the darkness.
Cultivating Gratitude with Difficult Emotions
* If your mood is low, acknowledge your feelings. Get support from an understanding friend or a professional. Review your thoughts and behaviour, in case you can make a change. Be kind to yourself. Experiment with finding things to be grateful for, in amongst the pain, like those flowers in the cracks.
* Cultivating gratitude can bring up regret, for the wasted energy focussed on trivial things, bearing grudges, material possessions, a sense of entitlement. Or there’s unaddressed addiction, the sloth of wallowing, the cruelty of comparison or your disregard of your own beautiful self.
* When practicing gratitude, notice any unhelpful scripts, patterns, stories and thoughts that come up. Greet them with curiosity and loving kindness, like you would a moody child with a sore finger. Write them out ready to explore.
* Perhaps the safety of gratitude makes a space for hidden rage, sadness, difficult memories, or grief that need your attention. Once we are aware, we can heal, move through it, and let it go.
The things we are grateful for are our soft landing when we fall.
When you go into a garden, do you spend more time looking at thorns or flowers?
Finding the Light
Carl Rogers, who founded person centred counselling and psychotherapy working with post-war traumatised veterans in the 1950’s, taught us how a forgotten, solitary potato left in a dark shed will grow a shoot towards a tiny crack of light.
Gratitude Builds Resilience
If praying to Saint Jude, the Patron Saint of Lost Causes isn’t working, gratitude will strengthen your tired soul with its bright light.
* Gratitude is oil that prevents the corrosion of dark, sabotaging thoughts.
* It kisses our self pity goodbye.
* Gratitude replaces shame with love.
* Gratitude lights our pathway through the darkness.
* Gratitude shifts lack into abundance.
* If you tend to catastrophize everything, gratitude gives you balance.
* Gratitude is generosity.
* Gratitude is free.
When we embrace what we have, rather than focusing on what we don’t, we build resilience to cope with hard things. Gratitude helps us do hard things.
We can sing songs, instead of just rolling off the dock of the bay, and plopping into the sea.
“We cannot direct the winds, but we can adjust the sails.” Irish Proverb
Gratitude Beckons Winds of Change
Change can feel scary. It can threaten those who wish us to stay the same, including ourselves.
The caterpillar’s unforeseen crisis while her body reorganises into a chrysalis is forced to embrace the terrifying unknown. She has to let go.
To let it be.
You know the end of that story. 🦋
Gilding My Life with Daily Gratitude
When my newborn baby with dodgy genes lay dying peacefully in my arms, twenty years ago, I gave her the middle name ‘Joy.’ I was so grateful and joyful to be able to hold her, if only for a moment, and for her to show me how lucky I am to exist at all.
My daily gratitude practice gilds the difficult parts of my life. I say six things I am grateful for out loud as I sip my morning coffee every day. It is six, to counter the pesky negativity bias. This works for me, though if you’re more organised than I am, and want to drill it in, write it in a little book. Then you will have a beautiful collection of wonderful things, to light your way when darkness falls.
Otis Redding died in a tragic accident a few days after recording Sittin’ On The Dock Of The Bay. He didn’t know it would be a unshakeable hit, and intended to re-record it as it wasn’t even finished. He never knew about the millions of tapping feet he’d set off, or the fifty years of novice whistlers he’d free. He didn’t know how much he inspired us to appreciate how beautiful everything is, even when all is lost.
What six things are you grateful for today?
I am so grateful for you. Thank you for being here! Don’t forget to press the heart, to let me know you’re reading! It really helps.
Much love
Kate
P.S. See how far you’ve come!
On Sunday, our paid post is about learning from regrets and abandoned dreams. See you then?
