What Gratitude is Not

A friend posted a "real" Facebook post last night. The kind that says I am struggling here, but I'm going to count my blessings. I felt my heart flooding with gratitude as I read her words, her strength in reaching out to her community. To "keeping it real". In this time of sheltering and isolation I hear many people thoughtfully considering how they might invest this gift of time. In that post, it felt like asking for permission. Permission to not be doing everything right, to acknowledge the difficulty of the moment. It reminded me of the mantra that is emerging from Glennon Doyle's latest book Untamed: We Can Do Hard Things! Oh yes, we can. But we can't do them by pretending everything, including us, is just fine.

I remember the first time I practiced guided meditation. It was on a besties trip to Colorado to celebrate our year of turning 40 (no need to discuss how long ago it was). We rented a great house and one day had a woman come out to give us massages and lead us in a group meditation. I have difficulty with stillness. Not in an ADHD, knee shaking, toe tapping, kind of way. In a truly relaxing of expectations and the need to be productive way. What she shared has stuck with me as a lesson that reaches further than meditative practice. The idea is not to be free from thoughts. That is not how we are created. Thoughts will come, even in the stillness. Acknowledge the thought, for until we do it is not free to go.

Thoughts will come during this season that are not of gratitude. Well meaning admonishments, memes and social media posts that compare our current privilege (for some) reality of shelter in place to that of Anne Frank's time hidden in an attic, or the loss of a significant rite of passage for our high school seniors to those who didn't finish their senior year in the late 60's because they were sent to Vietnam are abundant. These do not serve as a call to gratitude. I can't say it as well as Brene Brown, so I'm going to send you to her new podcast "Unlocking Us", the FFT episode (I will let you discover what  "FFT" stands for).  We are all experiencing this for the first time. High school seniors need to have their very real loss acknowledged, not compared to past sacrifice. Parents staying at home, working and trying to school their children need acknowledgement of the stress of this new ask, even while yes being grateful that they have a home and food and, you get it. Let's partner with one another in acknowledging the feelings that come from this FFT stress. In doing so, we can find our way back to gratitude.

Today I am grateful for:

• A comfortable home, with a good supply of what is both necessary and luxury at this time.
• While I acknowledge that being sheltered in place alone is, well, lonely.
• Technology that keeps me working and socially connected.
• While frustrated by the continuous stream of negativity.
• My fierce friends, will to be real in this moment.
• While wishing I could see their faces and hug them close.

We Can Do Hard Things. If we just stop pretending things aren't hard.