Gratitude
Back to stress for a minute.
Sometimes stress feels so…stressful because we blow our own problems out of proportion. (That’s why it’s always easier to solve a friend’s problem than to figure out your own.)
The view from inside makes the problem feel a whole lot larger than the view from the outside.
Gratitude is a popular term. It is said that gratitude will change your life, lower your stress, improve your sleep, boost your happiness. Or something like that.
Gratitude is the new superfood, but I don’t want to get too hung up on it.
I use gratitude for perspective. It goes like this: I stress about whatever is making me feel like this month or this week or this day is the end of the world. Then I remember the people I drove past this morning, sitting outside in the snow with everything they own. I remember the photo on Facebook of the 27-year-old boy with special needs. I remember the faces of the parents whose baby lived only a day.
And suddenly all of my stuff seems a little more manageable. It doesn’t fix the problem, it doesn’t change any physical reality, but it does make it feel a little lighter.
The minute I am grateful for all the challenges I don’t have to face, the challenges I do face don’t seem to merit the negative energy I had been giving them.
It’s not everything, but it’s something.