The Gift of Presence by Caroline Welch

Author:Caroline Welch [Welch, Caroline]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Penguin Publishing Group
Published: 2020-03-17T00:00:00+00:00

What Is Integration?

Recognizing features of the different parts of ourselves

Linking the parts without losing their distinctiveness

Combining, not blending, the parts into a whole

Imagine a Fruit Salad

Strawberries, bananas, and pineapple

. . . in a bowl

Combined for a fruit salad, not a smoothie

The Gift of Gratitude

The word gratitude is derived from the Latin root gratia, meaning grace, graciousness, or gratefulness. Gratitude is often defined as appreciating what we receive, whether tangible or intangible, but there’s a wider definition that’s useful here: Gratitude is acknowledging the goodness in our lives, appreciating what’s valuable and meaningful to us, and being appreciative of experiences. Presence also plays an important role here because when we take time to express our thanks to others, we not only have become aware of what is most valuable to us, but we have communicated or shared our awareness with those around us.

Gratitude is a gateway to Purpose because it helps us figure out what has value and provides meaning in our lives. As the Dalai Lama reminds us, “Gratitude helps us catalog, celebrate, and rejoice in each day and each moment before they slip through the vanishing hourglass of experience.” Purpose researcher William Damon expresses it this way: “From gratitude springs not only an enhanced appreciation for our own blessings but also a desire to pass such blessings along to others—the heart and soul of purpose.” Studies show that gratitude is strongly and consistently correlated with greater happiness; it helps us feel more positive emotions, relish good experience, improve our health, cope with adversity, and build strong relationships.

With practice, we can develop the ability to notice and appreciate the bounty in our everyday lives. One way is a gratitude journal. A recent study divided participants into three groups and assigned each group a different task; the first group was instructed to journal about hassles and annoyances, the second group about the things they felt grateful for, and the third group about neutral life events. The second group had consistently higher well-being.

Take a moment to think about the things that you are grateful for in your life. Sometimes we can’t even be fully grateful for what exists in our lives until we experience loss. Melissa, at sixty-two, works as the dean of students at her local junior college and says that her life has been “pretty uneventful” compared to others. She decided in her late twenties not to have children, and both her parents and her in-laws passed away at relatively young ages, so she hasn’t had the caregiving responsibilities many do. One windy night, Melissa and her husband went to sleep in their suburban neighborhood in Santa Rosa, California, only to be awakened at 2 a.m. by a loud, persistent pounding. When she finally opened her front door, she said it was “like opening my oven door”; it was her neighbor, alerting her to the nearby hillside fire. Unlike Tandy, who also lost

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