Express Gratitude and Feel Happier and More Connected

I was talking to someone about Thanksgiving and they said that they don’t observe the day because it’s a day of mourning. If that’s you, you have all my respect. Do you, and I invite you to listen to my podcast about gratitude and Thanksgiving anyway, as I hope it will open your heart and let go. 

Before I get into that, I want to give gratitude to you for listening and sharing the podcast with your peeps, reviewing, following me on Twitter. Yep, I’m new to Twitter. You can find me at LauraGiles804. Every time you click on one of our links, share it or comment, you’re helping our rating, so it’s easier for people to find us. It’s a small way to show your gratitude for the content and show reciprocity. It’s like giving me a virtual high five! And I really appreciate that.

Okay, so Thanksgiving. Halloween is the festival of the last harvest, and by late fall everything is pretty much in. If the weather was fine, the bugs were not too bad, and there was enough rain, hopefully there is enough food to get through the winter and it was, and still is, customary to celebrate with a harvest dinner. 

This happened in most agricultural societies around the world. It isn’t limited to the United States. But lately, people want to include the Native American perspective in history. Rightly so. 

When the settlers and conquerors came to these shores, they brought disease, war, starvation, suffering, and genocide. With them came broken treaties, and the loss of languages, spirituality, and culture in North and South America, as well as the Caribbean. So, for brown people, it’s not a day of celebration, but a day of remembering losses. For indigenous people, 1492 was the beginning of the end. 

So what does that have to do with gratitude? Well, all of that happened, and the ancestors of those of us who are still here today survived. That is something to be grateful for.

For the first fifteen years of the Jamestown settlement, 10,000 people left England and only 20% survived. There were 102 passengers on the Mayflower, and only 51 made it through the first winter. So, neither colony had a great shot at surviving.

When the Europeans came to North America in 1492, the native population was estimated to be 5 million. In 1900, it was estimated to be only 237,000. So, I am grateful that my European ancestors and my native ancestors survived. That might sound jacked up, but if I take a side, then I am against another part of myself. Not just because I have European and Native ancestors, but because I am 100% human.

Seeing people as separate and different is what starts fighting and keeps it going. I don’t want to contribute to that, so all of them are just my people. You’re my people. I am you, and you are me. I’m grateful that we’re all here. I remember history. I am keeping it conscious so that I don’t repeat it. I will hold people accountable for speaking falsely about the past, and I let the resentment go.

Everything is a reflection of complimentary duality. We can mourn and grieve the loss, or we can celebrate the blessing of still being here. We can act like victims and sit in a place of hopelessness or we can stand in our power and live strongly in what we have left and make a life with what we have now.

There isn’t a right or wrong choice or way to do it because life is holistic. It’s all in there. So, we can all choose where in the circle of life that we want to be. There is definitely a time to mourn. It doesn’t make sense to lose something valuable and five seconds later, act like it meant nothing. That’s probably a denial of your feelings. Grief is appropriate. Screaming, crying, tearing your hair out is all appropriate.

And the wheel of life turns. Everything passes if we let it. I’ve heard that time doesn’t heal all things. I think that’s true. The passing of time is just time passing. It doesn’t heal all by itself. We have to help it by feeling our feelings, expressing them, sharing them, and letting go. As long as we’re holding on to the pain, healing can’t happen. Gratitude can’t happen.

So, I’m going to suggest something radical. I’m going to suggest that you be grateful for everything that comes your way. To do that, you have to let go of entitlement and be like an animal. Sea turtles have a one in 1,000 to 10,000 chance of surviving to reproductive age. Eighty percent of alligators die before reaching maturity. In nature, animals and plants don’t have an expectation of having healthy, attentive parents, being fed every day, getting into a good school, having great health care, or really have any expectations at all. They understand that it’s a dog eat dog world where life and death dance intimately every day. 

The antelope doesn’t hold a grudge when the lion attacks. The wild ponies don’t curse god when a cold snap comes along and makes food scarce and traveling difficult. They just get on with it. 

This doesn’t give anyone a pass for being ugly, mean, vengeful, or spiteful. It just means that we can choose to sit in a place of powerlessness and blame and complain, or we can sit in a place of power and choose to see the blessings in what we have.

You see, we’re all brainwashed from the time we are young to look outside of ourselves for validation, self-worth, and to see if we are okay. We measure success and happiness by how much we have, what things look like, and how many friends we have, titles, and that sort of thing.

We have a lot of spiritual gurus telling us that Spirit wants us to be successful and all we have to do is get clear on our intention and the cosmic Santa Claus in the sky will manifest our heart’s desire. This follows the same thinking that if you’re spiritually wise, your life will be blessed with riches and abundance.

Nature isn’t like that. It works in a circle of birth, growth, and loss. It doesn’t just move in one direction of growth all the time. And what the universe wants from you may be really different from what you want from yourself. I promise you, everything that shows up in your life is for you.

Do this experiment. Pretend that what I say is true. Everything that shows up is for you. Use it. See every person as a mirror, a teacher. Be ruthless with yourself. Be radically honest. Be wise yet compassionate. Accept no cop outs. Look for the lesson in everything. Don’t expect life to be fair. Don’t expect any handouts. Pay for everything with some type of reciprocity - sweat, blood, time, money, attention - whatever. And then look at your life. 

I’m sure that you will see that everything that comes your way is a blessing. It may not lead to riches, Prince Charming, or that big career change that you wanted, but it will grow your spirit. Spirit isn’t interested in your big house or trophy wife. Spirit is interested in your inner growth. And you can do that in a hovel.

Since I just said that, let’s segue for a moment. I don’t know if you know this, but spiritual travel to third world countries was a booming business pre-covid. Do you know why all these first world people were flocking to dirty, unsanitary, and sometimes dangerous places? It’s a search the peace that eludes them in their comfortable, sanitized, safe lives. I’m just telling you this to give you a shortcut. You don’t have to go there to find it. It’s already within you. All you have to is love the life you have and treat every day as if it’s a blessing. Or in other words, be grateful.

So, I’ve been to many third world countries: Peru, Cambodia, Egypt, and Mexico, to name a few. It feels really good there. The people are a community. They are humble, friendly, and they know what’s important. It’s not the hot guy in the Mercedes. It’s the festivals, the harvest, god, family, the sunset, and just the feeling of knowing you’re alive for one more day. It’s about being in the game - giving, receiving, feeling, and exchanging energy with other people and Nature. Just being present with it all the music and dance of life.

I can’t tell you how wonderful it is to stand beside a waterfall in the middle of nowhere that is always that pretty and wild, whether anyone sees it or appreciates it. Or what it feels like to look up at the stars night after night and have my breath taken away and know that so many people never take the time to look up. Or what it feels like to see a wildflower growing out of a tiny crack in the rock just being blown around by a fierce wind, and I’m wondering how could that little splash of beauty survives out here? Or maybe you have a child and remember when she was just a few days old looking at her fingers or toes and marveling at what a perfect little miracle she is and how could she ever have been created? 

But life’s beauty isn’t just in the natural world. Have you ever heard a song that just made you want to melt? It stopped you right in your tracks so that you could absorb every note without distraction? And it burned its way into your memory because it was just that insanely moving? 

Or what about a dance? The body wants to move and when it has the music to carry it, it can be the most expressive, emotional way to just be in the world - especially if it’s shared with someone else. When you move with someone else as one person that is carried on the rhythm, it’s like dancing to the rhythm of life.  These things are free, you guys. 

You don’t have to be anyone special to do this. You don’t have to look any particular way. You just have to say yes to the experience. 

And if you can say yes to that experience, you can say yes to having your heart broken, sacrificing for your children, working long and hard, or doing all the other things that this life requires to open your heart and grow your soul. Approach it all with love and gratitude and watch how your compassion, love, and connection grows.

You’ve heard the quote, “That which does not kill me makes me stronger” right? That’s pretty much what I’m saying. Our hardships are challenges to grow us to the next level. Or they give us that opportunity at least. It’s up to us to take it. We’ve all seen people who are battered by life, right? They seem like they gave up and are just waiting for the end. They’re all wrung out.

No judgment. You can’t know what it’s like to walk a mile in someone else’s shoes. But you also see stories of people who have been hit by the worst abuse, poverty, hard luck, drugs, alcohol, legal issues, death, crime, medical problems, just about every horrible thing you can think of, and then they turn it all around. Something clicks one day and the trajectory of their life shifts. It doesn’t change all at once, but it changes. And everything they went through before provides the knowledge, contacts, experience, and strength to get through what’s ahead.

I don’t have a hard luck story like that, but I can still point to my life and see how my wildly different experiences all come together to be exactly what I need right now. I’m interested in so many things and none of them have anything in common and yet when I look at the skills and tools I need for what’s ahead of me now, I couldn’t have planned it better. And the tougher friendships, clients, and partners are the ones who have helped me most. The hardest times are the ones that taught me the most. 

So, do I wish that some things hadn’t happened? Do I have regrets? No, not really, because if I can make something meaningful happen as a result, then it’s all worthwhile, isn’t it? Pain is the price of the experience and learning that I gained. Everybody’s life is like that. We all want to feel like we have a purpose. You can give that to yourself by finding meaning in the big and small things in your life.

Now, I know that some of you aren’t all that creative. I work with people all the time who can’t make up stories, can’t pretend, and have forgotten how to let their inner child play, so I’m going to give you some examples to get you started on how to find gratitude in the shadier parts of life, alright?

Let’s look at addiction. Maybe you have or used to have a problem with addiction. Maybe it’s someone in your family. But what good can come from addiction? Maybe you learn compassion, or that everyone is flawed, so forgiveness and self love become easier, or maybe you learn that no one is beyond redemption. Or maybe you learn just how resourceful and resilient you are.

Or let’s say it’s mental illness, and again, this could be you or someone that you are close to. Maybe through that experience, you gain strength that you didn’t know was possible, you learn that it’s okay to ask for help, or you learn how to have healthy boundaries.

We all have love relationships. Maybe one or more of yours is really tough. Through that suffering and hardship you learn how to be vulnerable, that it’s okay to say yes to what you want or no to what you don’t want. You learn how to be free and wild, or how to give or receive. Maybe you learn patience and how to live one day at a time.

Maybe you were impacted by genocide. You have ancestors who were either persecuted, objectified, oppressed, or your ancestors were among those who did these things. The creation of this country happened on the backs of genocide - the killing of Native Americans from Canada to South America and Africans. Lots of people died to exploit the riches of the United States. 

Through remembering who we are and where we came from, maybe we learn forgiveness, grace, personal responsibility, generosity, or compassion. 

Maybe you or someone close to you is sick, so you deal with illness all around you. Through that, maybe you learn about personal responsibility, sacrifice, acceptance, or your relationship to family or spirituality gets stronger.

Sometimes the gifts of hardship are things like “I didn’t realize how stubborn or judgmental I am” or “I need to lighten up and learn how to have fun” or “I need to heal some things from the past.” Pressure and discomfort bring attention to what’s inside. It subsides when we bring things back into balance. 

So, yes, it’s all about gratitude. Everything really is for you. Spirit doesn’t take without also giving you the opportunity to receive. And notice that I say the opportunity. Learning how to receive is a skill. Everyone doesn’t know how to do that. 

If you only want to receive what you want, you’re going to be empty a lot of the time. If you only receive the things that look good at first glance, you will miss a lot of pleasant surprises. If you accept what shows up, you will see that complimentary duality in action every time- that means that with every undesirable thing comes something good. 

Actually from every positive or desirable thing comes good as well. We don’t only learn from pain. Being in love can teach us how good it feels to belong to someone, to care for someone, and have a partner to go through life with. Until we have that experience, it’s only something we’ve heard about. Succeeding can show us that it’s worthwhile to struggle, commit, and persevere. Having a peak spiritual experience can expand our ability to love, our sense of connection to the universe, and show us how narrow minded, limited, or selfish we’ve been. Maybe we’ve not been asking enough of ourselves. Who knows?

If you’re dealing with something challenging this Thanksgiving season, it may be really hard to be grateful. Sometimes we don’t see the blessings in an event or a person until we have had some distance from it. That’s where mindfulness and faith come into play.

Mindfulness is about removing all the things that aren’t here in this present moment so that we can see what is here. Faith is believing without any proof. So, we don’t yet know that there is a blessing because we can’t see one, but being in the place of faith makes us willing to receive the goodness, anyway. 

For me, I want to set up my life so that there are as many wins and blessings as possible. I haven’t seen a downside to gratitude yet. Abraham Hicks said, “The entire universe is conspiring to give you everything you want.” I don’t know about that, but I do believe that it’s giving us everything. How can it not? It’s everything. We’re everything. All we have to do to turn it into something good, positive, useful, or desirable is to change the way we look at it. 

But don’t wait for the outlier events to happen - I’m talking about the moments that take your breath away or break your heart. Most of us spend most of the time in everyday routine type of things. Stop to give thanks for those moments. Wake up with gratitude by having a champagne toast to the sun when it rises. Wink at the moon. Say thanks when you turn on the tap and water comes out. Give thanks for the land that feeds us and provides us with a home. Give thanks for the warriors who keep us safe and do things so that we don’t have to. You know, there are all kinds of things every in everyday life that can make us feel so blessed, so lucky. It’s raining, it’s not raining. It can really be anything. 

Living in a space of gratitude is a way of saying “I see you,” to everything - the ferns, turkeys, scorpions, whales, homeless people, priests, jugglers, and mountains. When I say, “I see you” I mean the light inside. It’s a way to intimately connect with all of life in the way that we connect with our lover. 

Our lovers aren’t perfect. They are flawed. They hurt us. We hurt them, and yet we love and appreciate them anyway. This is the same. Walking in gratitude is like saying, “I love you, big, beautiful world. Thank you for being just as you are.” It’s also a way of sending appreciation for yourself because everything is us and you are everything. To me, nothing drives that home like gratitude. What we see in others is in ourselves. So see the love. Appreciate the goodness. It will help others to be more lovely and good, and it comes right back to you, too.

Whether you observe Thanksgiving or not, I hope gratitude is part of your life path every day. I hope that it helps you to create relationships with humans and our other than human brothers and sisters. I hope it reminds you to give thanks to the earth for the food that it has yielded this season so that we all survive another year. I know it’s easy for those of us who get our food from the grocery store to overlook that and take it for granted. Thanksgiving is a time to touch base with your roots, and go back to the basics of how fragile life is, and how well Nature provides for us. 

If you need help letting go, hit me up! I help people let go without having to talk about the problem. It’s simple, easy, and everyone can do it. You just have to be willing. Thanks for tuning in, guys. See you next week.