Gratitude for Life

This article about gratitude starts with salt, the seasoning I need to stay away from, but, it's apropos. Even a tiny amount of salt in food makes a huge difference, lighting up your taste buds. It makes the peanut butter taste more delicious, the soup, richer, the melon, sweeter. Our lives are made more delicious, richer, and sweeter by something we can add to our minds daily and that is the state of gratitude.

Keep in mind that opportunities to be grateful for don't always come in pretty packages, and too much salt can make something taste wretched. Think salty anchovies without the Caesar salad! I've certainly experienced wretched times only to discover that a 'wretched' thing was the very situation or event that morphed into something amazing and worthy of gratitude.

Why is gratitude important or even relevant to salt? Our bodies surely love salt in the right balance.

The human body requires a small amount of sodium to conduct nerve impulses, contract and relax muscles, and maintain the proper balance of water and minerals. It is estimated that we need about 500 mg of sodium daily for these vital functions. (https://www.hsph.harvard.edu/nutritionsource/salt-and-sodium/)

Of course, too much salt, I know, contributes to high blood pressure, hence it's a seasoning I need to limit. I'm grateful that my physical body is functioning well and that I can choose to help it function even better through healthy choices. That's something I can wrap my head around. Put junk in one's body and it will scream at you to stop. What if you got really sick and realized all the salty snacks you were addicted to were killing you and you got another chance? That's enough to be grateful for and would lead, hopefully, to the end of salty snacks. Meaningful gratitude leads to action and change.

Perhaps the way gratitude is expressed sometimes seems shallow. In my mind it has to be meaningful to you or it tends to have the opposite effect. It's one thing to say "Hey, I'm not dead yet. I'm grateful." It's another to say, "Today I'm grateful for 70 years of learning really amazing stuff." Your gratitude statement must resonate within you and cause a change in your overall attitude or behavior. Listing your gratitudes in your journal or on your fingers just before you drag yourself into bed isn't going to cut it either. Taking a few minutes as part of your bedtime routine to remember your day and finding a single opportunity to give thanks for will begin to help you express meaningful gratitude. When you start looking for opportunities to express a deeper state of gratefulness, the more you'll find to be grateful for.

Continuing with meaningful expressions, let's talk about a character trait that plays well with gratitude - humbleness. I don't think I've ever seen an ego on steroids exhibit gratitude unless it's all directed back at that person with the ego. "I'm so grateful I found the perfect earrings to go with my beautiful dress. Aren't they stunning!" That's ego-puffing. I'm talking about a powerful state that brings us awareness of something that's profound in our lives. It almost always improves the quality of one's life and causes one to reflect just how good life really is. Even the best earrings don't do that on such a scale, right?

Imagine someone was walking in a field one day, probably daydreaming, and without realizing it she loses her precious bracelet. That bracelet symbolized the love her father had for her mother. When both of them died, she had a beautiful reminder of her parents. She wore it everyday and loved to tell the story about how it was made. "The story goes," she said with some excitement, "my father worked in a factory that made airplanes during World War II. He'd met my mother years earlier when they were both teachers but then life happened and they lost touch." Her eyes softened as she continued, "I guess my father thought about my mother during that time and began fashioning a bracelet out of some scrap stainless steel on lunch breaks. He eventually gave the bracelet to my mother. They married and three girls were born."

As her parents grew older and it was clear that her mother was battling Alzheimer's Disease, she used to walk down to her parent's house to make breakfast for them. Bouncing into their bedroom, she'd ask what kind of porridge they wanted that morning. One particular morning they were both up and dressed, sitting on the edge of their bed holding hands. Her father held a bracelet in his hands. He held it up as she walked into their bedroom and then told her the story. "That's a beautiful story, Dad," she said, "and that's a really well-made bracelet. It must have taken a lot of time to make." The father was clearly a little emotional. Grasping his wife's hand again, he said, "We'd like you to have it." Well, she was over the moon and tried it on right away. It fit perfectly! It's been on her wrist now for almost 20 years and is one of her most precious mementos from her parents.

Yes, that person is me and I am deeply grateful to have been part of that moment, of hearing the story and being given something that clearly meant a lot to both of them. It wasn't just the bracelet I was grateful for. I was given a poignant memory of one of the last moments my parents spent together in their home before my mother needed assisted living care in a senior's home. Yes, it was sad, but the memory of their gift given with such tenderness still touches my heart in a profound way and that will stay with me as gratitude for life.

Imagine, then, losing that bracelet. I haven't ever lost my bracelet, but imagine if I did. I'd be horrified and heart-broken. Imagine again that a kind neighbour heard about my story and scoured the field where it was lost. Imagine how I'd feel when my neighbour showed up two days later with the bracelet in his hand. There'd be tears and laughter and relief and gratefulness. My heart would be exploding with happiness. There'd be a cake and tea and hugs and so much gratefulness.

Back to salt. Gratitude is a state that flows, and like salt can permeate your food making it delicious and tasty. Gratitude can start to permeate your life making even the rotten, ugly or wretched things that happen into causes to feel grateful. Gratitude for life means both thankfulness for one's life and a state that stays with you for life. This gratitude is humbling and encourages us to look for its presence, for even the smallest reason, in everything that happens, good or bad. The action and change occurring within us is the profound state of gratitude for life I'm talking about.