GrateFULLness

Nature's beads
Originally uploaded by play4smee

"Gratefulness is the heart of a well-lived life."
~ Jason Shulman

I have understood gratitude from an intellectual place for quite some time, yet have only recently understood what it means to really feel grateful from a place of FULLNESS in myself, in my heart, with, as shared yesterday with my healer -- BOTH feet in my life.

In my teacher's passage where the quote above originates, he speaks about the human ego not ever being a mistake of God's creation but rather, when it is integrated and healed, it becomes the best vehicle for feeling gratefulness - the central aspect of our being.

I shared with my healer yesterday that for truly the very first time, as I really am in the fullness of my life, I am experiencing such clear sight and deep levels of gratitude for exactly what is here in my life, which includes the people in my daily life -- some of whom I have known for quite some time and yet am experiencing them in a WHOLE way and with much more appreciation. And the reason that this is happening has nothing to do with them or what they're doing or how they're changing or not changing; it is about my being fully present to take them in - all of them - and from this place, I am really seeing them and feel the love and the appreciation I have for them in my life.

My healer explained to me that a significant part of the healing that is happening for me in this process is that I am allowing myself to feel pleasure -- fully, completely, abundantly. The message from my childhood had been this: "You can't experience too much pleasure, because it will be taken away from you." Healing this is helping me to not only experience my worth, but to savor and delight in my life and all that is in my life.

"Woe is me" was a nega aspect of my life, an entire identity that was formed, resulting from this childhood message of you will lose things and things will be taken away from you. Seeing myself as a victim of everything and everyone set the stage for creating experiences, holographically, of being taken advantage of, loss, worthlessness, devaluing, unable to be met, not feeling loved. "Woe is me" was also necessary in order to know the full experience of gratefulness. Each needs the other to exist. Too much of one, on the other hand, does not make for a balanced life.

I realize now how hard it was to experience gratefulness while I was still wallowing in "Woe is me". I had glimpses of gratitude -- it certainly looked like a good thing and a nice way to feel -- but I couldn't sustain or hold onto this feeling because I was worrying about what I was missing or what I would be losing or how I would inevitably be abandoned or rejected. I wore the guise of gratefulness and what it was covering up was the bubbling fears of "Trouble's just around the corner." Operating like this was having just a big toe in my life, while the rest of my body was cowering and bracing for the inevitable doom and gloom to come.

I smile when I think about the people in the rooms of AA who are revered and respected that introduce themselves as a "grateful recovering alcoholic". They are embracing the whole of who they are, which includes both their recovery and their alcoholism. I never truly understood people identifying themselves in that way before until this very moment. What an incredible statement of one's acceptance of their FULL selves.

I have many of these statements I can make now:

I am a grateful recovering victim.

I am a grateful recovering adopted person.

I am a grateful recovering alcoholic.

I am a grateful recovering dishonest and selfish individual.

I am a grateful recovering co-dependent.

I am a grateful recovering adult child of an alcoholic.

I am a grateful recovering financially irresponsible person.


I am a woman who is experiencing grateFULLness.