is hard when you’re down in the dumps. For some reason, being ungrateful is easy (though it only adds more shame to the awfulness) and trying to be grateful is quite hard. For me, at least.
Depression and/or mental illness is very insular and internal, it takes all of our focus and turns it inwards. It’s easy to get lost in the fog in our heads and lose touch with the world around us. It’s not that I want to slip and fall backwards, I don’t (who actually wants that?!) but after spending a lifetime being depressed and self-destructive, it’s instinctual to do so.
I was watching a drama yesterday and the theme of the show was, being grateful for the people in our lives and our relationships with each other, as opposed to worshipping the material.
I don’t have a job anymore and my finances is a horror movie at the moment. Every little bump in the road seems cataclysmic. Radical acceptance is hard, turning the mind is harder and so I turn to reframing, or at least, gratefulness.
It’s so easy to focus on what we don’t have and all that we want than being thankful for all that we have and most of all, grateful for the people in our lives.
It doesn’t diminish or even negate my (and our) current struggles but it does help me feel more connected and less isolated.
Yes, I’m doing this on my own but I have support, people that love me and those that are my lighthouses, standing tall amidst the storm, beckoning me back home.
And it’s here, even in my struggles and in the uncertainty that the future holds, where I feel grateful. For all that I have and for all the people in my life. When I think about it that way, being grateful is easy.
Honeysuckle Haiku 