Gratitude & Joy

There are two sides to every coin. Gratitude and Grief. Joy and Sorrow.

Imagine creating a vast container to hold the entirety of your experience. Like a big bowl of guacamole with a bunch of colorful ingredients and textures: beautiful avocados, finely chopped onions and tomatoes and cilantro. Tiny bits of serrano. Pink salt and black pepper. Maybe a squeeze of juice from a bright yellow lemon. Crispy chips to dip and crunch forever. And through all the colors, the reminder that sometimes chopping onions makes us cry.

I remember years ago working in an onion plant in northeastern Oregon and separating onions for twelve hours a day. I had recently moved back to the US and was missing Mexico. The onions made me cry and so did my sadness for being away from the sea, friends and family here. I could let the tears roll and keep pulling the bad onions from the good ones and let myself be. No one asked, Why so many tears?

As I’ve shared before, our family is moving through and towards big transitions with changes in our work lives, our home life, identities and the upcoming graduation of our youngest who will turn eighteen in one week.

Last week, Javier and I spent two nights in our home on the ranch. Friday night and then again Wednesday. Friday was a reprieve. We arrived at the house, unloaded the groceries and I fell asleep on the couch. Saturday morning, we wandered and hiked and talked and laughed and explored the trails and I remembered again: so much land! So much to be grateful for. Trees, rocks, all the variety of colors and textures in soil alone. The beauty of a house I had the privilege to imagine and draw and then Javier took the plans and had it built. After all the years of creating peaceful abodes for clients. This one is for us. It was so wonderful that we said, Let’s come back on Wednesday! The kids need more space. With Dylan at home at the age of twenty-five, we feel safe being just a fifteen minute drive away.

Wednesday night, seeing the full on darkness around the house, I felt hit by grief. Homesickness. This was too much too soon. At the same time, it was a necessary reset. A reminder to appreciate one another. To give each other more space when we are on the same piece of property and remember, we still have time together before the next chapter. We don’t have to rush things or try to get ahead of the grief. As if we could in any case. Everything unfolds in its own time. And, we can't go around what we have to go through.

I remember when my son graduated from high school and went off to college and the year of grief and thinking, no one told me this would happen. How can I grieve when the person is still alive? Grief is not exclusive to death as we can grieve letting go of anything: a chapter in our lives, a home, a relationship, a career, a friendship, the way things were ten minutes ago and so on.

Grief and sadness, loss and letting go are hard and part of life. Sadness serves a purpose. Sadness and tears help us let go. When I think of sadness and joy, I remember a poem I read at the age of sixteen that has stayed with me for life, On Joy and Sorrow, by Khalil Gibran. Two sides of the same coin. As our capacity to feel sorrow deepens, our capacity to feel joy expands. As we allow ourselves to grieve for our losses, our gratitude for the blessings and privilege of being alive deepens. Taking things for granted becomes a luxury we can no longer afford.

Javier has often recognized the depth of my gratitude which I hadn’t really appreciated until he mentioned it early in our relationship over twenty years ago. His words of recognition made that part of my being and way of being felt seen in a new light. For that I am grateful too.

Gratitude and Generosity go hand in hand as part of the series of attitudinal foundations of Mindfulness Meditation.

The attitude of gratitude reminds us that this is enough. I am enough, you are enough, there is enough, nothing is lacking. As we learn and grow and evolve, we can continually practice the attitude of gratitude: ‘this moment is enough’ feels different than, ‘it would be better if…..’

After I feel hit with the weight of grief, when I resurface, that feeling is imbued with gratitude for the blessings I have been given. When I feel it is too soon to let go a little too much of a home I have lived in for more than twenty years – recognizing it is a privilege to have the time and choice to let go slowly – I remember with compassion this is the home where I have lived the longest. The only other home I remember belonging to my family was one I lived in in northern California where my father lived his last days decades ago. We moved a lot and traveled up and down the west coast of the US and throughout Mexico while I was growing up. To witness my children, live in one home for the first eighteen years of their respective lives is a dramatic contrast to my first eighteen years of moving and living with family, friends, and alone in La Paz at the age of sixteen when there were no high schools in Los Barriles to attend. Different upbringings, attachments, and different experiences in letting go. I am filled with gratitude for this life, this home, this family, and the experiences I have been given and have made me who I am and will help shape who I will be tomorrow and the next day after that for as long I live. To be alive is to learn for life.

To practice gratitude is to shift from the attitude of scarcity to abundance. When our well is full, when we are satisfied and grateful for the blessings and recognize the privilege it is to be alive, then we can give from a place of fullness and share with others. What do we share? Our innate goodness, our presence, our humanity, our ability to listen and capacity to see them in their mix of divinity and humanity. We can share stories, laughter, space and tears, our gratitude and joy. And we can give each other the gift of space and trust in letting us each be.

Gratitude practice recognizes the blessings in our lives and from that place, we can also rejoice in the joy of others. Much like the practice of loving kindness, we can repeat phrases that honor the blessings we feel in our own lives and then offer heartfelt phrases wishing joy and happiness for others.

Below you will find an excerpt from the book by Jack Kornfield, The Wise Heart, and the practice from class this week.

“Let yourself sit quietly and at ease. Allow your body to be relaxed and open, your breath natural, your heart easy. Begin the practice of gratitude by feeling how year after year you have cared for your own life. Now let yourself begin to acknowledge all that has supported you in this care:

With gratitude I remember the people, animals, plants, insects, creatures of the sky and sea, air and water, fire and earth, all whose joyful exertion blesses my life every day.
With gratitude I remember the care and labor of a thousand generations of elders and ancestors who came before me.
I offer my gratitude for the blessing of this earth I have been given.
I offer my gratitude for the measure of health I have been given.
I offer my gratitude for the family and friends I have been given.
I offer my gratitude for the community I have been given.
I offer my gratitude for the teachings and lessons I have been given.
I offer my gratitude for the life I have been given.

Just as we are grateful for our blessings, so we can be grateful for the blessings of others.

Now shift your practice to the cultivation of joy. Continue to breathe gently. Bring to mind someone you care about, someone it is easy to rejoice for. Picture them and feel the natural joy you have for their well-being, happiness, and success. With each breath, offer them your grateful, heartfelt wishes:

May you be joyful.
May your happiness increase.
May you not be separated from great happiness.
May your good fortune and the causes for your joy and happiness increase.”

Thank you for reading and for being. I am grateful for your presence in my life. Near or far, thank you for being who you are. 

Namaste,
Tehroma 

On Joy and Sorrow by Khalil Gibran

“Then a woman said, Speak to us of Joy and Sorrow.
And he answered:
Your joy is your sorrow unmasked.
And the selfsame well from which your laughter rises was oftentimes filled with your tears.
And how else can it be?
The deeper that sorrow carves into your being, the more joy you can contain.
Is not the cup that holds your wine the very cup that was burned in the potter’s oven?
And is not the lute that soothes your spirit, the very wood that was hollowed with knives?
When you are joyous, look deep into your heart and you shall find it is only that which has given you sorrow that is giving you joy.
When you are sorrowful look again in your heart, and you shall see that in truth you are weeping for that which has been your delight.

Some of you say, “Joy is greater than sorrow,” and others say, “Nay, sorrow is the greater.”
But I say unto you, they are inseparable.
Together they come, and when one sits alone with you at your board, remember that the other is asleep upon your bed.

Verily you are suspended like scales between your sorrow and your joy.
Only when you are empty are you at standstill and balanced.
When the treasure-keeper lifts you to weigh his gold and his silver, needs must your joy or your sorrow rise or fall.”