Expanding Gratitude

Every Wednesday I spend about an hour on the phone with a friend, or what people in Nonviolent Communication cirlces would call an empathy buddy. Each week we take turns speaking what is moving through our mind, heart, body and reflecting back what we hear. It is a practice of deep witnessing. We've been sharing in this way now for 4 years, having started just after attending our first intensive training.

Most calls we focus on one person's sharing while the other reflects. This morning my friend was the primary sharer, noticing places of deep grief and deep joy in her life, ways she is supporting others and finding support for herself. She commented on the complexity of being human, of being in relationship with other humans, and the sense of aliveness possible when we are willing to be in it all. The conversation brought us both to a place of reverence, honoring what is.

Being grateful for what is.

Turning toward what is.

Allowing what is.

Finding the gift in what is.

I am currently reading Braiding Sweetgrass, written by Robin Wall Kimmerer, who repeatedly invites readers to imagine, step into, and honor our interconnection. Reading this book, I am aware that even as I say over and over again in my work "The primary goal is connection," there are many connections that still feel fragile, tentative, waiting to be made between me and myself, me and other people, me and Creation. I believe gratitude is a primary path to connection. Kimmerer also writes about gratitude as a foundational connecting practice. Even though I have written a gratitude list nearly every night for the last 5 years, still my practice can be shallow.

Because of both Kimmerer's writing and my friend's sharing this morning, I want to practice expanding my sense of gratitude, allowing it to saturate my being. I want to practice extending my gratitude to include what and who frustrate me (how is this moment or this person teaching me?), what I see as my own shortcomings (how can this lack of skillfulness or capacity bring me into relationship with someone who has greater skill or capacity? How can I practice self-acceptance?), and in places of grief (what love is my grief pointing me to? How can I open my heart and co-create greater love in and for this world?).

As I consider these questions, let me share a few recent gratitudes:

I am grateful for three days in the car with my parents. I recently drove them from Texas to Kentucky and though not all moments were easy, I am so grateful that I was able to help make their trip possible. I am grateful for the sharing that happened between us along the way.

I am grateful to have had a small bit of time with them in Texas, experiencing and hearing stories of a place that is dear to them.

I am grateful for a recent toe-dip into relationship. I spent a few weeks getting to know someone and though we then parted ways, the gift came in connecting me to old grief I didn't even know I was holding. As it surfaced, I allowed myself to feel and to release some of that old stuff.

I am grateful for a friend who has just started collaborating with me, helping me to shape my work. She most definitely has skills I do not have. She also has the gifts of vision, insight, deep care, and enthusiasm for the work I'm doing.

I am also so grateful for you. I am grateful that you have chosen to be connected with me in ways that are sometimes fleeting and sometimes profound and long. I am deeply appreciative for times you respond to my writing, for times I get to work with you, for times I get to play with you, for times I get to learn from and with you. If we haven't yet connected in a personal way, I hope that someday we will. It is thanks to you that I can do the work that I do. Thank you, thank you, thank you.

I could spend the day expanding the list. When I take the time, I notice that I have so much, so very, very much to be grateful for. I hope this is true for you, too.

Allowed to Feel It All

About a week ago I was feeling all the grief, not about COVID-19 (for once), but about having to create a strong boundary with a person I care about. I shared my situation with a couple of people who listened compassionately, but even with their attentiveness, I couldn’t shake it. The grief still wanted to be heard. In the evening I was texting with another friend about it, who told me that I shouldn’t take on someone else’s grief, especially now, that it was even unhealthy to do so. My friend used the analogy that you may have seen by now- we’re all in the same storm, but in different boats. The point my friend was trying to make was that because I wasn’t in the same boat as the person with whom I needed to create the boundary, I shouldn’t have feelings about the other boat.

At that suggestion my grief turned to rage. Rage at the idea that being in the different boats meant I shouldn’t have feelings about the other boats. Rage that the person was telling me that feeling these emotions was unhealthy. Rage that my friend didn’t get that the point of the boat analogy was actually encouraging empathy, connection, and understanding rather than squelching them.

Rage feels a lot more powerful than grief and I was grateful for the energetic change. The conversation  ended shortly after that and I opened Untamed, Glennon Doyle’s latest memoir. I happened to be at the chapter in which Glennon wrote about her heartbreak at learning of immigrant family separations happening at the U.S.-Mexico border and the ways that she responded to that situation. As I read, my rage turned back to grief and then to relief. She understood. I felt heard by a stranger who hadn't actually even heard me. 

Being in different boats doesn’t mean we don’t get to have feelings about the other boats. It also doesn’t mean that if we’ve got a good sturdy boat with room for more people, we just wave at the folks in the leaky canoe. “Sorry about your luck! See ya later!” If we see and can do something, hopefully, we'll do something. That's a topic to explore another day. 

I kept reading. I allowed myself to feel whatever feelings arose.

I am allowed to feel it all. You are allowed to feel it all. 

That night I shed a few tears. I put down my book and I slept well. I woke up feeling lighter because the grief was no longer stuck in me. It had moved through.

Many of us have been taught that some emotions are good (joy, gratitude, relief, hope) and others are bad (loneliness, disgust, anxiety, confusion). Some of the “bad” emotions are even gendered by societal norms. Men can feel angry and express it, but women can’t. Women can feel grief and express it, but men can’t. Then there’s shame. Most of us have been told to feel shame at one time or another (“You should be ashamed of yourself!”), but few of us want to admit to feeling it. It’s too scary. Fear and shame, shame and fear, both are adept at disguising themselves as something else. Often it’s anger. And so we allow some emotions to surface and try to keep others from seeing the light of day. We feel the stress of holding them in our bodies, then we disconnect from both the emotions and our bodies because the accumulation becomes too painful. And...or...at the moment we least expect, all the emotions erupt out of us; we become the storm leaving wreckage behind us.

What if we allowed ourselves to feel more instead of stuffing, denying, numbing? What if we could name the feelings in all their nuance and even recognize when we were experiencing a whole slew of feelings all at once? What if, when someone else told us how they were feeling and it made us uncomfortable, we could both live with our own discomfort and also honor the feelings the other person was having?  

Since I’ve been practicing Compassionate Communication, I’ve gotten in much better touch with my feelings. I notice that they’re happening in the first place. I give myself space to explore them. I allow myself to be with them without judging whether they’re good or bad.

Noticing, honoring, and tending to emotions are practices. They are practices of connecting- to ourselves and each other. I believe these are lifelong practices. May we lean into the spectrum of emotions. May we lean into each other as we tend to them.