Intrinsic Hope by Kate Davies

Author:Kate Davies
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: New Society Publishers
Published: 2018-03-02T16:00:00+00:00

Choosing to Feel Grateful

It can be difficult to feel grateful when there’s so much bad news. But gratitude is like intrinsic hope—it does not depend on our external circumstances or conditions. Rather, it is an attitude of mind, an inside job we can choose to feel every moment of every day. Things do not have to be going well for us to express gratitude, and even on the worst days we can give thanks. This may sound strange, but it’s true. Let me give you an example. I have a friend who gets very depressed about the state of the world, so much so that she has decided not to have children. One day, there was a major terrorist attack in the Middle East and hundreds of innocent people were killed or wounded. I happened to be watching the TV news with her that day and she burst into tears with sadness and grief. All she could see was a world of increasing violence, bloodshed, and religious fundamentalism. I held her while she sobbed. After a while, she stopped and thanked me for being there with her. Even though she was feeling hopeless about the future, she was grateful to me. Despite, and perhaps because of her hopelessness, she could appreciate my presence.

So how can we be grateful for the gift of life at the same time as our hearts are breaking about the global eco-social crisis?

The first step is to become aware of everything we have been given. We don’t have to forget everything that’s wrong, but we do need to recognize all the ways we have been helped and supported in our lives. Just taking a few minutes each day to count the blessings in our lives is a very effective way to cope with negative information and emotions. Writing a gratitude journal for five minutes a day can make people feel happier.4 Try it and see if it works for you. Here’s another option: every time you feel sad or depressed, you can remember something or someone that you appreciate. This is not to negate or avoid painful feelings. On the contrary, remembering to be grateful helps us to bear these emotions without running away from them. The more we can be thankful for our lives, the more we can bear sadness and grief. With this in mind, here are a few things we can be grateful for.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.