I don't feel good but I don't feel that bad either

I took a walk through my mind's eye this morning on gratitude. This is what I found.

Now, I like to start this off by clarifying what these mind’s eye walks are about.

I do these solo exhibitions quite often. My mind finds a question and then I allow it to travel, without judgement, where ever it wants to go.

I actually started doing this then with a friend of mine, an incredibly safe friend, because you have to be willing to walk without judgement. We call them Conversational Explorations, and I absolutely love them.

I often find the disconnect between what we believe to be feelings our feelings and what actually are the thoughts we are having about the feelings to be fascinating.

Today it was gratitude. Shall we?

Oh! One second. A disclaimer. Again, I ask that you wander with me. None of what I write here is good or bad or otherwise. It is just a walk, that’s all.

I don’t feel good but I don’t feel that bad either.

Is this all there is? All we can hope for? Especially in a world where much “worse” is scrolled through everyday?

Sometimes I think gratitude becomes a problem. Like gratitude holds us back because we should be grateful for what we have. Like it’s the thoughts and prayers of the self-development world.

You say “gratitude practice,” and people roll their eyes. It’s like somewhere not too far from the surface of consciousness people realized that (a) there is so much judgement coming to the table of gratitude before we even arrive at the fact that (b) we aren’t actually practicing gratitude we are practicing the thought of being grateful.

Gratitude can be so hollow, and sometimes I think these grateful good intentions are a well-disguised weapon.

Gratitude isn’t good-intentioned (well-intentioned?) thoughts.

It’s a feeling, and one, in my opinion that can powerfully inspire action if planted in a certain environment.

Oh, my mind calls me to an exercise like being invited on the playground to a game of four-square.

How do you know when you’re grieving?

Where do you feel it in your body? Close your eyes and touch the place that grief lives in your body and try to give it a color.

Does it have a temperature? I think this exercise works better the longer you can sit with this but for this exercise, let’s continue.

As easy as conjuring grief was…

How do you know when you’re grateful?

Where do you feel it in your body? Close your eyes and touch the place that gratitude lived in your body and try to give it a color. Temperature?

*curiously I have a feeling that pulling something into your conscious mind that inspired the feelings of grief, however your experience it, may have been more accessible than those of gratitude*

I wonder why? Because pain is sharp? Raw? What is gratitude then?

And because of what it’s not, do we recognize it, store it, hold onto it not as preciously?

Well, exercise over and this was a bit startling for me. How easily gratitude, the feelings, could be misplaced like that.

I wonder when did we start largely settling for gratitude as a thought rather than something we feel, breathe deep, and cherish.

And then I ask if we can’t or at the very least struggle to recognize the feelings of gratitude in our own privileged lives (speaking for myself, but probably whoever reads this too), how do we use it to propel use, as fuel to fight for the rights of others to be able to have access to the very things we are supposedly grateful for?

I don’t think bringing the light into the dark is enough, I think we must first truly value the light we have. In a way that we are acutely aware of it. It’s glow, it’s warmth, how it changes, what makes it change?

How can we create more habits that promote behavior that truly values the light?

Well the question that remains is, how do we know when we truly value something?

That’s deep, that’s personal, and I think the only way we truly get to come back from the brink of losing something so precious, as a critical anchor that keeps us here with our bare hands grasping at hope, like gratitude is to find out how we value things.

What is our value habit, how can we mold it around gratitude, and how do we show up to the practice of valuing our gratitude consciously and intentionally on a consistent basis.

Because I think when we can conjure our gratitude feelings like we can conjure our grief to the surface, I think we see differently, lighter, unified, true for US and today? That’s invaluable.

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Well thanks for coming with me on a walk through my Mind’s Eye. Again, I have no clue what you might get out of this. Maybe you’re leaving thinking I’m nuts, or have a screw lose, or who knows but I’m glad you’re here all the same. And if you made it this far? You’re my people. lol

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Love you always, Xx, C