This past week has been powerful… honestly more powerful that I anticipated it would be and impacted me emotionally much more than expected. With the combination of the presidential debate on Tuesday night followed by the 23rd anniversary of the 9/11 terrorist attacks on Wednesday… there was such an overwhelming feeling of appreciation for the life that I have. Surprising… given the fact that it is nowhere near the life that I would have ever thought (in a million years) that I would be thankful to be living.
As I was watching a special on the 9/11 attacks… I couldn’t help but feel grateful through tears in my eyes because I am living and so many lost their lives that day in such an unthinkable manner. So many families lost a loved one… so many kids lost a parent… so much loss… so many stories left unfinished. And then there is me. I am here… able to experience the good moments and the excruciatingly tough ones. I am able to breath the ocean air and feel the sunshine on my face. I am able to talk to my boys and witness them grow from afar with an abundance of love for them and our unique relationship. I have genuinely incredible people in “my tribe” that have my back and I have theirs… through thick and thin… no questions asked. Just an abundance of gratitude as I close out this week.
And this got me thinking about a habit that I have started over the past few months in here. I believe it was in May or June but there was a period of time when I realized my mood was down for a longer period than just the normal lull’s in our roller coaster of life. There was no specific reason for this decline but I was finding myself getting aggravated at meaningless events in here… holding on to the tough things that I cannot control out there and generally just being much more of a downer… which is a ‘no go’ for me. So… I set out to find a way to fix my mood.
When living behind these walls… we cannot physically remove ourselves from a situation in order to lift our spirits… we can’t take a little weekend trip… we can’t grab the kids and go to the park to run around… we have to find a way to help ourselves from within. I remember deciding to go out and walk the track one evening to brainstorm about why I have been feeling this way and more importantly… how to fix it. As I was out there and turned the corner on the far side of the track toward the ocean… I have a clear memory of forgetting my problems or why I was even out there for a moment and just being grateful for the fact that I was by the water. Grateful for the nice breeze that night and the view of the sun setting across the yard and over the hills. Just grateful. And then it hit me… I had absolutely zero negative emotion in that moment… and the only thing that changed from one minute earlier was my feeling of gratitude. And not just a feeling… in a way that you tell yourself… “Yeah I feel pretty good today”… it was allowing the gratitude to actually sink in… to feel it more than think it. I’ll say that again because it is a key factor… ‘to feel it more than think it’. I realized that it is impossible to feel angry… to feel resentful… to feel jealous… to feel sad when you are experiencing genuine gratitude. I have made a point to “exercise” this revelation on a daily basis as I walk from the unit to work every morning… with the ocean waters looking like glass to my right… I block out the constant chatter between my ears for that minute walk and allow myself to feel grateful. And every single day… without fail… I turn the corner away from the ocean in a better mood… ready to tackle the day ahead of me with positivity and energy.
Now… I know some of you may be thinking… this sounds like some BS Zen mindfulness talk. And that may be true but I challenge you to try it. I challenge you to take one minute out of your day for the next 30 days and quiet the noise… think about something… someone… anything that you are grateful for in that moment and allow it to penetrate the surface. And I think you are going to “turn the corner” smiling to yourself like “that damn inmate was right”.
Stay Healthy. Stay Active. Stay Grateful.
Zach, I gratefully accept your challenge. We all have our own depth that we need to escape from occasionally or regularly. Your one minute/30 day solution could change a lifetime and I am ready to join you. Thank you.