By Ron Evans

Recently I was speaking about gratitude with co-owner of Salt Creek Apothecary and self-acknowledged Herb Nerd, Kristen Acesta. Her advice and philosophy were too good to not share so I immediately told her to shut it. Until we could have a proper interview on the subject for The Comet, that is. It went like this:

Ron: I’m usually pretty decent with gratitude. At least occasionally. But...I’m rebelling against it right now like a bratty four-year-old.

Kristen: Four year olds are pretty wise, or at least that has been my experience. Maybe you’re on to something. In general I see people believing that by practicing gratitude it means you have to be (or will be) happy, or even content. So maybe the rebellion is your form of gratitude to the world. We should probably start off by defining what we mean by gratitude, and then if you really are being a selfish brat we can work on your adverse childhood events and teach you some gratitude tips (gratitude doesn’t completely fix these btw).

Gratitude is simply the practice of recognition and respect. The definition is: the quality of being thankful; readiness to show appreciation for and to return kindness. But 1. You need to have recognition of what is around you first and foremost in order to give thanks to it and 2. We need to define what kindness looks like (especially self directed kindness).

In the current atmosphere, I see a lot of posts on facebook swirling around like “my children are driving me nuts being at home 24/7 buuuuuuuuuut I should be grateful that they are home and safe.”

My argument would be that both can be true. You can have bratty four year olds who decided that your late filing tax return documents were a coloring project for which you are enraged about. And be grateful for them. A step further, you can be grateful for the recognition of emotion that you feel in that very moment of avant garde impressionist artwork.

How do you work through your emotions or knee-jerk feelings as a response to circumstances - to get to a place of gratitude?

The difference is that gratitude is not an emotion, it’s an action. We all experience emotions. One could argue that at the root of them they are neither negative nor positive, but as it turns out humans classify them that way. Can we experience a perceived negative emotion while fostering gratitude? Maybe for the lesson it brings, or the other positive emotions it sometimes brings but maybe just not now (like your children sucking up all your personal space but they can be cute and snuggly sometimes)? The answer is yes. The question wasn’t exactly rhetorical.

But that is an example most people can find on their own. That is one of those easy paradox situations where you feel something negative but shame yourself into thinking you should be feeling otherwise (this is what I typically see in gratitude practice). The harder stuff is describing what kindness looks like directed towards yourself as a form of gratitude and letting yourself experience the negative.

One of the key points here is that it is incredibly important to recognize and feel the emotion that you are feeling at this very moment, even if it’s anger, hate, pity, sadness, elation, anxiety, worry, fear. Part of the gratitude practice is waking up to the moment and recognizing it (meditation helps here), thanking it, and wishing it farewell (self gratitude practice). And that doesn’t guarantee the emotion will go away either. Maybe you are stuck with it for a while.

My biggest beef with the pseudo meditation new age hippie community is that I find it preaching this peaceful perfect walk through life IF you practice (or if you do yoga, or adopt this mindset, or whatever). And don’t get me wrong, I want you to practice. In fact, we all need to practice, continuously at least. There are wonderful resources in the community for that; Joanna Dunn and Kelli Riddle for example. There needs to be a wake up to the fact that you are in the midst of it whether you like it or not. “It” being right now. That said, waking up to a daily gratitude practice doesn’t mean that life will be prancing unicorns with a unanimous political agenda. In fact it might be just the opposite. You might actually see a bigger divide, that your dad was a dictating a-hole, that you morally object to your job, or just see things in general more clearly. Maybe you even see yourself more clearly.

Ok, fine. I’m in. Now what? Do we have to go around the table like at Thanksgiving and say what we are thankful for? How do you start?

I do start people with grace actually. It doesn’t have to have a religious context to it, but in our clinic when suggesting people practice, we often recommend starting with a form of grace before eating. It can be as simple as taking three breaths before you shove your pie hole to enjoy the anticipatory act of eating. And I mean, who doesn’t like to eat, right? Who doesn’t love the smell of smoldering bacon before your lips, still sizzling from the pan? Try extending that enjoyment in a form of gratitude. It’s also a practice of awareness (recognition of the senses). Think of all the ways you love bacon - not just the shoving your mouth full of it. The smell of it cooking on a sleepy Sunday morning before you fully awake. The heat it gives off warning you, suggesting patience on your plate. The feel of it in your mouth, one side a little sloppy and the other hard and crispy. The immediate taste of salt then just a hint of sweetness to leave you with a full hearted savory finish. There are a lot of senses going on in that situation. In all situations actually. Paying attention to our senses helps ground us back into real time. Then we can more readily see the emotions that color the situation.

Herb Nerd sticker from Salt Creek Apothecary.

Is being aware of things to be thankful for simply a starting point for having gratitude, or is there more to this?

There is significantly more to this. It’s the beginning of recognizing and dissolving your self-made paradigms, beliefs, prejudices, preferences, self fulfilling prophecies, boxes you put yourself in, boxes you put others in, and the end-all-be-all separation between what you deem to be your reality and what actually is. Morpheus is giving you the option, choose the red pill Neo.

Is it possible to truly have gratitude during a situation you feel badly about, whether that’s a breakup, losing a job or simply not getting what you want out of your life?

Yes, of course. Pema Chodron talks about the normal state of humans is love. Not the “oh my god, you’re so perfect for me and/or this puppy is so cute I want to eat it” type of love. But compassion and acceptance love. It’s not an emotion. It’s a state of being.

“Hate is not the opposite of love, indifference is” - Elie Wiesel

Just to put it in the negative for reference. Love is not an emotion. You can experience what nearly all of marketing wants you to feel towards something, but it is most often either lust, greed, desire (possession), infatuation/idolization, the list goes on, in fact I believe there are seven of them. Regardless, whatever the feeling is, it’s definitely not love.

You can experience a trying time (losing your job for example), witness the emotion of loss, failure, depression, etc. for which is totally called for and appropriate, and still resolve towards gratitude for life and how the path will lead you.

You can also absolutely hate someone. And still see the path ahead of you (and have gratitude for it). It’s about witnessing the levels. Senses -> Emotions -> Thoughts -> nirvana (I’m not sure it’s linear by the way).

Gratitude helps us start defining those things.

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