Just about everything I have read on how to improve your life starts off with or at least emphasizes an attitude of gratitude. Gratitude is the key to tolerating bad circumstances, to improving those bad circumstances, to hang in and appreciate good circumstances and to attracting the things you want in your life. Gratitude is the key to raising your vibrational level/consciousness. Gratitude, gratitude, gratitude.
Today I am listening to a PodCast for parents who have lost children. The guests are a famous medium and one of the cofounders of an organization that helps parents after they have lost children. The thing that is different about this organization is they actively encourage parents to “go there” and talk about the afterlife. They promote the idea that your departed child isn’t really departed, but is still here with us, part of the family. They encourage people to seek the help of mediums and to try to communicate with their children directly via looking for signs and other methods. This is all great stuff. There’s just one problem. Trying to generate this attitude of gratitude when the worst possible imaginable thing has happened isn’t easy.
They say that grief brings your vibrational level down. Anger, fear, frustration, jealousy, all of those feelings will drop your vibrational level like a rock. Well, damn. I know I still have a lot to be grateful for. I know that I have still been greatly blessed, but I am depressed right now as I have ever been in my life. I allowed the girls to become the center of my life, my heroin if you will. I was addicted to them, gladly. They brought not only meaning to my life, my motivation for getting up in the morning, for running the business, for just being here; they brought joy and color to my life. One of my favorite times of the day would be at bed time just listening to the two of them chattering away in the hallway and then telling each other they loved each other in the special words they had invented that were only ever spoken between the two of them.
The house just isn’t the same without Shayna and Kayla here. The energy level has dropped about 90%. Ty and I do the best we can, but when Kayla is away at school, I find myself counting the days until she comes home to at least raise the energy level some. There are days, like today, where I’ll spend the whole day in the house except for the hour that I go for a walk.
I know the key to having this attitude of gratitude is to turn your eyes from what is missing in your life or what is going wrong to what is going right. What is going right is, for most of us most of the time, so much more. And, I guess for me it still is. However, this is the biggest hole in my life that has ever been ripped that could ever be ripped and right now it’s hard to not sit and stare at that hole remember the days when it was whole and look forward to the day when it will be whole again.
Whenever I get into one of these funks, a scene from Young Frankenstein from over 40 years ago pops into my head. Dr. Frankenstein and Igor are digging up a body to use to create his monster. Dr. Frankenstein complains “What a filthy job.” It’s dark, they’re in a cemetery, they’re covered in dirt. Igor turns to him and chirps back “Could be worse.” “How?” “Could be raining.” At that moment, the skies open, thunder cracks and the rain pours down. Every time I’m tempted to complain that scene comes back to me and at least mitigates the situation.
The first step to solving any problem is first recognizing it is a problem. I know I’ve got to crawl out of this rut. And I know the way to do it is to focus on what I have, not what I don’t have. The next hurdle is simply to do it.
