Richelle Hofer

Gratitude. It seems like such an overused word… I see it in social media posts, on those little white signs with the barn wood frames, embroidered on dishtowels, #grateful #blessed.

I consider myself a generally grateful person, but I haven’t taken a lot of intentional time to PRACTICE gratitude. It just hasn’t seemed that appealing to me.

Most of my life I’ve thought of gratitude as either boasting about things in a socially acceptable way or finding the “good” in an otherwise crappy situation… either people posting “look at me and my stuff” or my grandma saying “Eat your peas. And be grateful! Some kids don’t have food.”

This past year I’ve lost a lot of things that I hadn’t ever given much thought to the possibility of losing. In fact, just in the last two weeks our pastors announced they have accepted a position at another church and a friend of 22 years (who I had a coffee date scheduled with just three days later) took her life.

All of these changes and losses, … had me paused this morning. I was first thinking of my most recent losses and then I started thinking broader… to all of the losses I’ve been through in my life. It’s interesting that as I counted my losses, not one single “possession” even made it to my list. The losses I thought of were all people and moments.

Why don’t we recognize and appreciate the full impact of wonderful things in life before we lose them?

And why does it sometimes take a loss to make us recognize how bad something was? A bad situation, a bad relationship, a bad boss, etc. Sometimes it takes distance before you can look back and say “what was I thinking? Why didn’t I see how bad that was?”

As I thought about the good and the bad losses throughout my life I realized my tendency to try to protect myself from feeling too much in the moment… ANY moment. It’s only in retrospect that I let myself recognize the full truth of both positive and negative people and moments.

And how does that serve me? How’s that working out for ya Richelle? I walk through life trying to avoid feeling too happy so that I don’t feel as much contrast when the bad stuff comes? Or worse, I convince myself that I should be “grateful” about a bad situation because it could be worse? Doesn’t that just make me miss happiness and put up with crap that I should move on from?

What a terrible life strategy!

I think the answer to my problem might be real true gratitude. Not “look at me and my stuff #grateful #blessed”… and not “eat your peas and be happy about it” either. I think it’s almost the opposite of both of those scenarios.

I think true gratitude fully embraces the moments good and bad. It makes me put down my phone and breathe it all in. It makes me feel every aspect full force and then say “STUFF doesn’t matter. I am intensely grateful for the people and situations that add value to my life – and I give myself permission to feel the weight of those relationships. I will not put up with people who steal my joy – and I give myself permission to feel the full weight of THOSE relationships too”

So it’s a new life intention for me… embrace people, embrace moments, embrace gratitude, throw the peas in the trash.