I woke up this morning and my wife sent me a post that she had shared/read about someone who decided to not let drugs and alcohol numb them, to not just say that they are fine when things are really upsetting them or they are having a hard day. I told her that honestly that was the same reason that I decided to get sober so many years ago because I was numb for so long and I really like feeling all of the emotions good or bad that come with life and it makes me feel strong to face them everyday and not give up.
I told her that’s one of the things that I still need to work on is feeling the emotions and trying to remember those that I had when I was such a young child because I started using so young. She mentioned to me this is probably why we have so many children. It made me smile and feel grateful.
As I was waking myself up I started to do my morning routine I was in the bathroom and my dog came in to say good morning. I was not thinking of him this morning but he was thinking of me and I thanked him for being such a good friend and again I felt grateful for having him in my life.
Then said a morning prayer that I learned long ago at the Retreat and I thanked my higher power for today. I began to realize how simple the effects of gratitude can bring to our lives when we start our day feeling grateful what that does to our person, to our mind and to our spirit. It’s really a simple process when we thank someone else whether that is our higher power or a friend or a family member and feel grateful for their patience, their love and support we start to feel that internally. We start to feel that we are worthy of having someone treat us with patience love and support. This feeling then becomes a practice and how we approach our day and we immediately look around at the things that we have with the people and places in our lives and we begin to appreciate them all.
The belief that somebody else can love us, be kind to us, be patient with us, starting from a higher power (god or whatever you call him, her, it) can then change us internally. We begin believe that we can also be those things and through those beliefs turn into actions of how we approach the day and that’s when the real miracle happens. We begin to build it into our lives as a practice, this felling of gratitude, and we slowly begin to pass it on to everybody else we meet. Little by little those we share it with begin to also feel that they are worthy of love, patience and kindness and they feel grateful for having you in their life - and that is truly a gift.