'Intuition to Action' Series - Gratitude
Originally published on LinkedIn · October 07, 2024
Gratitude is a game changing quality to cultivate.
In the hustle bustle of life, it's hard to catch our gratitude we feel towards life at large.
We are all taught the civil, good manners to say 'Thank you' or be thankful when a good word or kindness is presented. This happens quite in multitude which is a fantastic thing to bump into anyone being thankful for any good thing that happened to them, because of them etc.,
The outwardly method of saying 'thank you' or being thankful and grateful is one minute piece of our existence. Today, I'd like to bring you a more significant one that's functionally important to better our progress, growth, joy factors that boost our mental wellness and overall wellness at all levels. (Psychological, Spiritual, physical too)
Gratitude in any form when expressed well, felt well does measurable and instant joy in oneself.
If gratitude does so many good things to our daily existence, why is it hard to be grateful?
What are the factors that maybe impeding it?
We all have enjoyed the extreme elation, joy, beauty, optimism, motivation, inspiration from a well expressed gratitude throughout our life on many occasions.
When life's going tough, things look bleak, thrown into challenges (both uncontrollable and some in quantum effect of our own actions) etc., it's hard for us to be grateful. During steep mental shutdown, we might find it extremely hard to find anything to be grateful for.
This is normal, natural human psychological phenomenon.
But, what if I told you, dark moments are the highly charged moments where even littlest gratitude brings the greatest quantum leap of benefits?
Don't believe it?
Well, the good news is, you can try it out yourself. It doesn't need to be said or validated or taken for my word or others, like most of the other things too.
I found it extremely fascinating about this 'gratitude' when beaten down to the buried grounds.
A continuous downpour of sadness, darkness, despair hit me several months ago and it comes in waves and not linear. The healing from traumatic incidents, darkness is never linear. You recover a bit to get through the day and it hits you again as the problem isn't solved but you are trying to make sense of it all pooling your strength to get up. It's like a surgery, post-surgery healing type of resilience.
It's a paradox with gratitude and darkness.
We can't get out of the darkness without feeling grateful and we can't have enough energy to be grateful unless something good or a promising gesture that life presents.
It's a deadlock (in technical terms)
We must find seek joy in the smallest things, tiniest things around us, quite literally, it could be the very surroundings you are situated in or a small encounter with any living being.
Let me elaborate how small they can be, to be simply grateful. And an important reminder, gratefulness is not about some spoken words or even a gesture. It's a simple acknowledgment to the self that you are thankful for something you feel or say to your own self.
A good coffee, a smile by a random stranger on your walk, a beautiful flower, a tall tree, a squirrel passing by, bunnies playing with each other, birds, geese, ducks, serene waters, beautiful skies, Sunrise, sunset, full moon, star gazing, a stroll soaking up in nature, a good writeup, a good book or good quote, a kind word exchanged by you or others to you, a song, a lyric, a past memory of you doing something great that was well received...... this list is virtually limitless and can't be exhaustive.
We must find something to bootstrap and feel gratitude towards a small thing, oftentimes in an unexpected place, but that will set you off to a higher place in mind, a higher frequency thought that's a lever to bring the spirits up. It won't be magical and a silver bullet.
We must do this repeatedly and cultivate this as a rule to live by. Slowly, steadily, consistently, repetitively, we must be in this mode of feeling gratitude to what happens n our daily life. It has nothing to do with other human around or not, it's purely optional if you are introverted, a hermit phase or in solitude by choice or by design. The more solitude the better it is, in fact. (well, that's my personality speaking.. )
The deadlock is released with us taking the first hardest step to be grateful and slowly the joy and abundance will return in bountiful portions in the co-existence with our reality and the collective we are around.
When we make this a habit and discipline, it becomes a great joy factor even on the normal, good, happier days where we don't struggle but we are always in the giving mode, light mode of being joyful and bringing joy to the others around. Amplified good happens when we move in this fashion.
DIY exercise for you:
- Can you relate to the idea above? Did you ever find it hard to be grateful due to tough times and how did you help yourself?
- Is there anything you can do, to be simply grateful for life at large without attaching motives, reasons, people or anything but simply YOU being YOU in good existence?
About the Author:
I’m Veda Konduru, a former AI tech founder, data scientist, technology product architect with an academic excellence in science and technology with an overall 20+ years of subject domain career experience..
Inspired by some events in my life, I set myself off on a quest for exploring the role of natural intelligence, the human mind’s underpinnings, in the age of AI, and made significant strides in the past few years and I’m here to help others on a similar journey.
In short, An artificial intelligence architect NOW turned into The Mind Explorer.
