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I was private messaging with a friend from here about the mystery of gratitude lists. Why they work when they work. They seem so corny.
It came to me that a real gratitude list that works can't be an act of denial or brainwashing or putting on pink glasses to look at the world through wishful thinking.
A gratitude list will work if it really is a mature act of reestablishing a balance in the mind. As a species I think our self-preservation instinct leads us to sound the alarm at a bad incident. All we see is the bad thing. As with the TV news slogan, "if it bleeds, it leads."
As trauma survivors, even more so, that perception is not wrong, it is how we won the real life or death contest we were in to be survivors in the first place. But we can't live forever in emergency mode alone, the stress will just kill us dead as a door nail in the long term.
A gratitude list that works really gives us permission to loosen our white knuckled grip and take a break from adrenaline living so we can relax our poor hearts to avoid a heart attack. They allow us to get the rest we need for the longer journey of life after trauma.
I learned that here, by the way. Members here do two things every so often: start a hug thread, or start a gratitude list. Old curmudgeon that I was when I got here, I love it when they do that now.
What am I grateful for today? I'm in the eye of a monster snow storm that the news says has killed 9 people since yesterday. There you go, the bad news is real.
But to balance it out, I'm safe and I still have electricity (130,000 people don't already) so I can be connected to DS PTSD.
That's something to be thankful for hour by hour for me.
It came to me that a real gratitude list that works can't be an act of denial or brainwashing or putting on pink glasses to look at the world through wishful thinking.
A gratitude list will work if it really is a mature act of reestablishing a balance in the mind. As a species I think our self-preservation instinct leads us to sound the alarm at a bad incident. All we see is the bad thing. As with the TV news slogan, "if it bleeds, it leads."
As trauma survivors, even more so, that perception is not wrong, it is how we won the real life or death contest we were in to be survivors in the first place. But we can't live forever in emergency mode alone, the stress will just kill us dead as a door nail in the long term.
A gratitude list that works really gives us permission to loosen our white knuckled grip and take a break from adrenaline living so we can relax our poor hearts to avoid a heart attack. They allow us to get the rest we need for the longer journey of life after trauma.
I learned that here, by the way. Members here do two things every so often: start a hug thread, or start a gratitude list. Old curmudgeon that I was when I got here, I love it when they do that now.
What am I grateful for today? I'm in the eye of a monster snow storm that the news says has killed 9 people since yesterday. There you go, the bad news is real.
But to balance it out, I'm safe and I still have electricity (130,000 people don't already) so I can be connected to DS PTSD.
That's something to be thankful for hour by hour for me.
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Hey All...I hope that you have a lovely, peaceful beginning of your weekI have a bunch of chores that need doing but may put them off til tomorrow and just hang out with my landlord/roomie todayWhat about you?...Anything special going on?Have a great day and take good care of you!!..Xo
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Once again I've had a fever today. I'm not going to the hospital because that's a huge waste of time but I did schedule a dr appointment for Wednesday afternoon.
When I wrote that my gratitude started when life was the bleakest for me... It was after I had nursed my mother and father until they passed.. Ended up living in a place that I was very unhappy.... Lost my wee pooch I'm holding.... Went through any money I had foolishly.... Left the country and also ended up with no possessions and no home... Also in the hospital... It was winter and I didn't have a coat.... I hear where some are coming from.... One thing it really showed me is that 'stuff' although very nice means very little
I was also in bankruptcy
It was a very difficult but very awakening lesson..... Gratitude for me became things like a nice hot cup of coffee and a sunny day ... Although I am in a much more comfortable place now... I have a little basement apartment that's actually very cute and a new pooch... I come to count my blessings and when things get rough I 'try' to make gratitude a verb... an action word and it does help me a great deal
I'm glad the snow has stopped muji....xo
Suncloud..,omg....I rented a room for a year, a woman's group said it was safe....women only..,,then the landlady let a guy rent....next thing I know ambulances, cops knocking on the door....the guy overdosed on Heroin....I had terrible anxiety about this guy and now detectives were questioning me...I was all alone in the house and did not know anything, but I knew if I was a cop, I would not believe me..I was shaking head to toe...the landlady who rented rooms controlled the women she rented to by bringing in drug addicts/prison felons...,she had been abused, and she became an abuser!! I blew her act so she would never abuse any other woman Ever....I was moved to a hotel/christmas....I had such relief...,I opened my door the next morning to a carafe of hot coffee on a tray,,for Me!!!.....I just wept with such gratitude....sorry I guess I vented...it was just overwhelming! Thank you all for sharing ! Hugs
They took him away, but nothing happened to me, though I waited with baited breath there for a while. Things calmed down, and somehow he came home again.
Nice enough guy to me, actually, and seemed nice to his wife and kids, too. Maybe not so much on observing drug laws, though. Because sure enough, the cops came again. To my place again! With me saying again, "um, wrong apartment, I think you mean...." and nodding in the direction of the adjoining apartment.
Again they went next door, served their warrant, and made their arrest. This time he didn't come home again, and sadly, the little kids and their mom were evicted, their furniture put out on the sidewalk by the curb by my parking place. I knew he was probably a criminal, but seeing the consequences to his kids up so close I couldn't help but grieve for them.
Adventures result from one's reduction in socio-economic status, cheese, do they not? In my previous university professor with a convertible and an condo on the golf course life I never would have known such experiences up close. Fortunately, I was safe. Glad you were, too, in your happy ending with the carafe of coffee served to you at your safe hotel. Yay!
Now speaking of gratitude, check out my snow shoveling story:
I was trying to dig my car out of a waist high snow drift when a young woman in her twenties came by with a shovel.
She dug out my car. She dug a path for my car from the driveway to the snow plowed portion of the road. I tested it by driving to it and back. It worked. I'll be able to drive to work tomorrow. That's when I went back in my house and got all the cash I had in my wallet. It was only $28. She took it. I expected her to leave.
No. For no extra money, she proceeded to shovel through the snow and make a path from my car to my apartment's front door for me, too.
All right. Now I'll admit it. Even though my PTSD may insist, not ALL people suck. That one sure didn't
Gratitude time.