Gratitude - broaden the focus

Suzanne Mercier - Thursday, May 06, 2010

I had the pleasure of listening to a colleague Robin MacKee (the Clown Doctor) speak last week.  She talked of working with young children who have serious and in some cases terminal illness and that being around these young children who embrace life - given half a chance - has made her very aware of all that we have to be grateful for.

She is absolutely right and I strongly advocate examining who we are and what we're fortunate enough to be surrounded with - love, friends, family, children (human and furry), homes, nature, beautiful weather and so on.  Being in the space of gratitude and appreciation really shifts our energy.  We can look at a loved one with frustration and regret because we're looking at the faults - and we all have them.  We can shift entirely how we feel by focussing on the qualities that make us love that person and we can feel our hearts expand as we re-experience that love.

However, that's only part of the story.  Harking back to my blog on "Glass Half Full isn't the whole story", when we only look at the situations we consider 'positive', we're ignoring the opposite.  We can't have light without dark.  When we are only grateful for the 'positive' things in our life, we are exercising judgement that  what we consider 'positive' is good and what we perceive as 'negative' is bad.  Actually, the "not so great" situations around us teach us the most.  They provide us with information on what is really going on for us and that information is incredibly valuable on our journey towards understanding who we really are and how we hide that being behind masks and dysfunctional protective behaviours.

I think we have lots to be grateful for and it all serves our needs.

What do you think?  I'd love to know.
All the very best
Suzanne