Gratitude – Bold Soul Life

The true gift behind a gift

I have a friend who is wonderful at gift-giving. Within her close circle of family and friends, she remembers every birthday, anniversary, holiday, and even gives gifts in-between special events. She may be out shopping, sees something she thinks I would like, picks it up for me, and when I offer heart-felt thanks she quite nonchalantly gives me a dismissive wave of her hand, saying something like “oh, it’s no big deal…I just saw it and thought of you”.

My boyfriend Jim is also great at gift-giving, but he does it a little differently. I came home once from a business trip to find that he had surprised me by stringing Edison lights around my back porch and planted two little bushes in my empty ceramic planters. He always makes the bed on the nights he stays over (which is truly a gift as I often don’t make my bed in the mornings because it seems I’m always running late for work), and he notices little things in and around my home that may need to be repaired, and fixes things often without even being asked.

The definition of a gift, according to Merriam-Webster’s dictionary, is: something voluntarily transferred by one person to another without compensation. Okay, so that’s a dry definition of a gift as it speaks to the thing, or tangible item that is being given, but what about the thought, the energy, and the emotion behind the gift? Isn’t that what we should consider as the real gift?

I started thinking about this concept of recognizing what really is the “gift behind the gift” after a conversation with my friend Karla. Karla and I met at Starbucks one Sunday morning to sit outside for a catch-up and coffee, and she started telling me stories of her family. She told me about her mother-in-law, who lived in El Salvador, and how as a wedding present her mother-in-law gave her several pounds of fresh, ground coffee. I must have been dismissive in my response to Karla, because she pulled her sunglasses down to the bridge of her nose, looked me directly in the eye, and said, “You don’t understand, she made me the coffee. She knew how much I love coffee, so she actually grew the plants, harvested the beans, then dry-roasted and ground them for me in time to give it to me as a wedding present.” Okay, that was impressive. I remember thinking in awe about how much this woman must have loved Karla to go through all that planning and work in order to gift her with a few pounds of coffee. To me, it was truly a gift from the heart.

The story from Karla shifted my thinking. I started paying closer attention to the energy, thought, and love I was being given whenever I received a gift. What did that person go through, or plan, in order to present me with something nice? And I’m not just talking about purchased gifts. If someone invites me to their home for dinner, I think about what they go through from the moment the invitation is presented to the time of the event and even after the event. They first take the time to negotiate a mutually convenient day and time. Then, there’s energy, time and thought spent on figuring out what to serve for dinner, going to the grocery store and purchasing the items, maybe extra time spent on cleaning the house before my arrival, and setting out the appetizer, plates, utensils, etc. And, when I leave after dinner, there’s time and energy spent to clean the kitchen and load the dishwasher. The gift of being invited over for dinner was not limited to the wonderful meal I enjoyed…it was more the thoughtfulness, the planning, and the loving energy that went into creating the event.

Last February I had the misfortune of having and passing a kidney stone, and to make matters worse, I ended up sick for a week with infection. I was taking four different types of medicine a day to combat pain as well as the infection. My friend Kat, who is an herbalist, was concerned over the potential stress to my already-compromised kidneys by all the prescription medicine I was taking. She made two trips to my home on back-to-back days to bring me herbal supplements to help support the health of my kidneys. I was so sick she didn’t even stay to visit; she just handed me the supplements through my open door, wished me well, then got back into her car to head home.

You may be thinking at this point, “ok, what’s the big deal? She brought you herbal supplements. How is that a gift?” The gift that I received from Kat was her time, thoughtfulness, love and energy directed toward me during a time that I needed it. Kat lives in the next town over from me, and due to traffic, even on a good day, the drive is anywhere from thirty to forty minutes. And, Kat works a full-time job, roughly ten hours a day. So basically, on the two days she drove to my home to bring me the supplements, she first worked her ten-hour day, drove forty minutes to my house to drop off the herbal supplements, and turned right around and drove forty minutes back home. It’s not the supplements I was necessarily gifted with, it was her time, thoughtfulness, and energy.

Since my thinking has shifted and I’ve become more aware of the sometimes-hidden aspects of things that go into receiving a gift from someone, or being the recipient of their kindness, I’ve recognized that gifts are daily dropped in my path to discover. Most everything, if you really think about it, can be recognized as a gift. Recently, the person in front of me at the grocery store who had a cart full of items to be checked out noticed that I only had four items and offered me the place in line in front of them. That’s a gift. They took the time to recognize the difference in what we each were purchasing, and intentionally offered kindness to let me cut in front of the line.

The next time someone presents you with a gift, or offers you help with something, or does something nice for you, think deeper into what you are receiving. Think about the time, planning, energy, love, thoughtfulness or even sacrifice that goes into what you are receiving. Notice how it magnifies in your awareness what you’ve received by ten or even by one hundred. Pretty awesome, right?

If we open our eyes and our hearts wide enough, it becomes easy to recognize every day more and more little gifts laid along our paths to discover. And the more we recognize these gifts, the more abundant and rich our lives become.

Practicing Gratitude

When my children were little, they loved blackberries (they still do!). Whenever they accompanied me to the grocery store, the very minute they saw blackberries in the fruit section, they would each immediately grab a container for themselves. Blackberries are expensive, especially for me at that time as I was a single mother supporting two children, and I had to carefully watch my money. Inwardly I would cringe as I watched them dash over to the display counter to each grab a pack. $4.99 for a single-layer package of blackberries the size of a postage stamp. Multiply that by two, and I had a quick $10.00 added to my grocery bill.

When we were finished shopping, and had made our way home, the first thing I would do was to take the blackberries out of the shopping bags, wash them, and give them to the girls as a snack while I finished unpacking all the groceries and putting everything away. I watched them as they sat at the kitchen table, devouring their blackberries, with a look of pure heaven on their little faces. A certain feeling would take hold in my heart, and start expanding throughout my inner core. Was it satisfaction at seeing how happy they were? Was it pride, in the fact that I was able to buy the blackberries for them? I could never quite figure out the correct label to attach to the emotion I was feeling in my heart while watching their simple happiness over the blackberries. Looking back, I know now that my heart was filled with gratitude. I was grateful for their happiness.

The definition of gratitude is simple. Gratitude is a quality…a quality of being thankful and the readiness to show appreciation and to return kindness. If you’re currently going through a challenging time, you may be thinking to yourself, “Seriously? My life has just been turned upside down, so what exactly do I have to feel grateful for?” Well, we’ll get to that. Let me first tell you why practicing gratitude is so important….

Practicing gratitude is important because it helps us shift our thinking. Gratitude helps us stop thinking about everything that is going wrong in our life and helps us recognize the things that are going right. Gratitude gives us hope. Gratitude helps us see the beauty that is all around us. And the funny thing is, the more we express gratitude, the more positive our lives become. There are so many studies available for review that actually prove that expressing daily gratitude positively affects our physical, emotional, mental, and social health. If you don’t believe me, go to Google and type this in the search bar: why is gratitude important? Your search will return pages and pages of wonderful articles and studies listing all the life-changing benefits of practicing gratitude. Read them.

You may be going through a rough time right now, and it can be difficult to keep up a positive attitude. Believe me, I know…I’ve been there. I know it’s hard to look at the bright side when you’ve been through so many changes, changes you may not have asked for, and you’re on your hands and knees crawling toward the light at the end of the tunnel and hoping that the light you see isn’t an oncoming train. I also know that when you’re in that type of fog, it’s hard to see anything positive at the moment let alone practice gratitude. So let’s start small. Grab your journal, and make a list of the most basic things that are good in your life right now that you can feel grateful for. Your list might look like this:

I am grateful that:

I have a great job that I enjoy
My children are beautiful, healthy, and doing well
I have beautiful, healthy grandchildren
I am healthy
I have a warm and safe home
I have a car
I have food in my refrigerator
I have an intelligent and creative mind
I have great friends that care about me
I can see, hear, and walk
I have wonderful opportunities ahead of me

And at the bottom of your list, write these words: Thank you, Thank you, Thank you!

Take a moment and look at your list. Really let it soak in. This first list is a great start in practicing gratitude. Every day, in your journal, write down at least one thing you are thankful for, and always add ‘Thank you, Thank you, Thank you!’ at the end. If you’re having a bad day, go back and re-read your lists to remind you of everything in your life that is going well. If you practice this exercise every day, in a short amount of time you’ll start recognizing little gifts and blessings that cross your daily path, and you will start feeling gratitude on a daily basis, which in turn will keep your thoughts and your general attitude at a higher, positive frequency.

Whenever I do receive little gifts or blessings from the Universe, I make it a habit to acknowledge them with gratitude. I’ve been doing it for so long that it this point, it’s become second nature. As an example, at the company where I work, finding a parking space close to the building is truly a gift. If I don’t arrive at work before 7:45 AM, all the parking spaces have been taken and I have to park in the parking garage. It’s a fair distance from the building, and while I don’t mind walking during the summer when the weather is nice, I really don’t like walking to the building when it’s freezing cold, or snowing, or in heavy rains. I tell myself, while driving into work, that I WILL find a parking space close to the building, and nine times out of ten, I actually do! I feel like the open parking space has been waiting for me, and as I pull in, I say out loud “Thank you, Thank you, Thank you!” It may seem silly, but it works for me as I am expressing gratitude over this simple gift I have just received, and I’m opening the door to receive more gifts!

I express gratitude over everything that goes well or when an unexpected gift lands in my lap. If I receive an unexpected refund in the mail, I express gratitude. Or, when one of my children, who are busy living their own lives, call me out of the blue just to chat or check in, I silently express gratitude that they thought of me during their busy day. The point is, when you get into the habit of being grateful even for the smallest of things, more good things happen to feel grateful for.

I also express gratitude when I’m out in nature, walking through the woods and enjoying a beautiful day. I do this through appreciation of my surroundings. I breathe in the air and smell the wonderful mixture of wood, green and earth. I see how the sun shines through the trees and notice how the light filters through the leaves and casts shadows along the path where I’m walking. I stand still and watch the squirrels play and chase each other, and notice how each tree is formed differently. This fills me with peace, and the beauty of my surroundings makes me feel grateful.

Because I have so many things to be grateful for, I enjoy returning kindness, even to strangers. Many times while I’m in the drive-up lane at Starbucks, I’ll pay for the person behind me. It makes me feel good to know that when they drive up to the cashier, they’ll be surprised to find out their coffee has been paid for. If I see an elderly person struggle to reach something on the top shelf at the grocery store, I ask if I can help get an item down for them. I do this because this is my way of trying to be a blessing in someone else’s life, and maybe make their day a little better.

Expressing gratitude begins as a conscious daily effort, but over time becomes second nature as you develop your own personal practice of gratitude.

Cherish the Chaos

When my children were little, Christmas was always a big deal…a grand event. The first big event was, of course, decorating the tree. I used to sit in the middle of the living room floor, carefully unwrap each ornament, and place them in eager little hands to be hung on the tree. When the last ornament found its place, the kids and I would stand back in the dark with only the Christmas tree lights illuminating the room and admire our handiwork. After an hour or so, when they had lost interest in the tree, I would rearrange the ornaments so they were spread evenly over the tree instead of all being clustered at a child’s eye level. They never noticed I had ‘improved’ their handiwork.

As Christmas drew nearer, I became guardian of the tree and of the presents starting to accumulate at its base. The little hands that previously had so carefully hung the ornaments turned bold in their quest to examine the wrapped presents. Presents that were carefully placed around the tree in an aesthetically pleasant arrangement became jumbled as my children would examine, shake, poke and prod each wrapped item in an effort to guess what was hidden inside. Some taunting was involved as well if, for example, one child had four presents under the tree and the other child had only three at that time. I became a broken record as I was constantly shouting “Stay away from the tree!”, and “Stop shaking the presents!”

Christmas Eve delivered peak excitement for the kids and exhaustion for me. By that point, all the presents from me were under the tree, and it was fairly easy getting the kids to go to bed as they knew Santa wouldn’t come until they were asleep. After teeth were brushed and each child was tucked in for the night, I would pour a glass of wine and sit in silence for a bit until I was sure they were both asleep. Then, the presents from Santa would be added to the pile under the tree, and stockings were filled. Usually by the time I had completed my tasks and finished my glass of wine it was well after midnight, and I would drag myself off to bed, satisfied that I had taken care of each little detail in preparation for Christmas morning.

Around 4:00 A.M. I would feel a little hand shake my shoulder. Next I heard the hushed whisper, “Mom…I think Santa’s been here.”

“How do you know?” I whispered back.

“Because the stockings are full,” she replied.

I would convince her to crawl into bed with me, hoping she’d fall back asleep for a couple of hours. She would lie with me, on her back, and I could tell even in the dark that her eyes were open and she was patiently waiting until I told her its time to get up. An hour or so later, her sister would find her way into my bedroom as well and at that point I knew there was no possibility of more sleep for me. One final stretch and I would crawl out of bed, put on my robe, and follow them both downstairs.

Once downstairs, I could convince them to wait to open presents until I made coffee. They satisfied themselves by dumping the contents of their stockings onto the floor and carefully examine each item. I would half-heartedly yell at them to wait until after breakfast before they started eating their Christmas chocolates.

Coffee brewed and poured, I would join them in the living room, and the real fun began. I would sit on the couch sipping my coffee, watching the scene unfold before me. Two pajama-clad little girls politely distributing presents to each other, politely acknowledging with a nod an unwrapped present being shown (look what I got!), only to then be thrust aside to conquer the next item. Sounds of paper tearing intermingled with shouts of delight, until finally, there were no more presents to open.

And I, still sitting with my coffee, would survey the damage. Shreds of paper everywhere, abandoned ribbons, packaging remnants and candy wrappers all over the floor; a mess to be cleaned up. Operating on automatic pilot out of sheer exhaustion, I would force myself up off the couch, put my coffee cup on the kitchen counter, retrieve a trash bag and start picking up shredded wrapping paper.

The rest of the day would be filled with cooking, cleaning, playing with the kids, and of course, breaking up the occasional fight (“she won’t give me my toy back”, or “she ate a piece of my candy”). I remember during one especially rambunctious Christmas locking myself in the bathroom, smoking a cigarette out of the open window just to get ten minutes of peace. By the end of the day, my nerves were shot and I was looking forward to putting the kids to bed so I could have a few hours of silence. Peace and quiet were luxuries I didn’t get very often.

Now, fast forward ten years. My oldest daughter is a mother of two beautiful little boys, and my youngest daughter is a college sophomore, which in turn makes me an empty-nester. This relatively new status of mine is not bad or good, it just is. It’s different. But what I notice the most is that my house is too quiet, too peaceful, and too clean. I miss the chaos. I miss the sound of laughter and packages being torn into on Christmas mornings. I miss the mess, and the arguing over candy. I miss my little girls crawling in bed with me at 4:00 A.M. letting me know that Santa has been at our house.

If you are fortunate enough to have children still at home, please believe me when I tell you that silence at times is overrated. Cherish the chaos. Listen to every sound. Enjoy the laughter. Really soak it all in and love every minute of it. And above all else, build memories.

Wishing you all a very Merry Christmas full of love and laughter.