A HYPOTHESIS OF EVERYTHING pt 1: YOU ARE HERE

CHAPTER 2

Your Gratitude Superpower

The last thing your fear identity will ever be is grateful for anything. The fear identity doesn’t know what to do with gratitude because gratitude has a sinister way of silencing your identity’s incessant rambling.

I frequently reference the serpent or snake in your head represented by the serpent in the garden of Eden that convinced Eve of her insufficiency and entitlement. “Something is wrong here. Your information is insufficient. YOU are insufficient and it’s not fair. But you are entitled to gratification. The catch is that it will cost you your personal dignity and probably the loss of your highest ideal.”

It’s human nature that the snake in your head begins the same way by presenting the notion that “something is wrong here and now,” including awareness of personal insufficiency or inequity. As you listen to that inner serpent, there will always be an invitation to deserve something. This invitation usually moves you toward an action that speaks the entitlement out loud in the form of a complaint or excuse from a victim’s perspective. The resulting activity is often to do something that rewards the voice in your head and expands on your insufficiency conversation. An example is this self-dialog in the mirror, “My God, you’re fat. Oh well. You can’t do anything about it. You might as well eat that candy bar. It will make you feel better because you deserve to feel better, right?” The same applies to any addictive coping mechanism. The end result is self-marginalizing and unworthiness, accompanied by the feeling that you deserve punishment. The experience is just more shame.

The antidote to the snake in your head is to SPEAK THE TRUTH. The biggest problem is that because that voice is the accuser and prosecutor, it knows your history of failures and limitations. It gets worse. The voice is also the judge, jury, and executioner that refuses to let you testify on your own behalf. But take the stand anyway. Boldly speak the truth.

But what is the truth? How do you start to practice the truth so that you know that it’s the truth and not just something deceptive that you’ve been self-trained to follow and believe? The answer is gratitude. Gratitude is the weapon against entitlement, and entitlement will destroy gratitude in a millisecond. But if you notice something for which you are genuinely thankful, THAT is the truth. Even in the moment, it is the truth to you.

Practicing gratitude is practicing telling yourself, the world, and the universe the truth. GRATITUDE or THANKFULNESS is the gateway drug to living a life that speaks the truth. It’s the kind of truth that silences the snake in your head and effectively dismisses the courtroom drama devised to condemn yourself.

YOUR GRATITUDE SUPERPOWER 

These aspects of the human condition are directly impacted and transformed by practicing gratitude:

1. Speaking the truth. – as previously mentioned.

2. The antidote to loneliness. In thankfulness, there is a realization that you are not alone. Something more significant than yourself is contributing to your life. In gratitude, there is also a realization of others that care for you no matter how small that care seems to express itself. If you fear a life of loneliness, practicing gratitude will train your brain and release hormones that contribute to confidence and security.

3. Responsibility and purpose. When you are thankful for something specific, that specific thing is meaningful to you. And you want to be grateful for it again tomorrow and the next day, and the next after that. You will naturally pay attention to that which you are thankful, including relationships. You will see yourself applying awareness and effort to enhance or expand the reality of the future of your gratitude.

4. Courage. When you can see something as an opportunity to grow or learn, you can be thankful for that opportunity even if it feels like you will barely endure it. You begin to see ways to approach that opportunity without fear or, inside of your gratitude, be aware that you might not be able to face it alone. You will bring along someone else for whom you are also grateful. Bravery and courage are natural results.

5. A happy life. Gratitude generates positive energy. Practicing gratitude releases neurotransmitters of health in your brain and body and creates a context of power, security, compassion, and generosity. Those things will always be returned to you more than you give.

6. Better sex and intimacy. Thankfulness invites affinity and creates a space for intimacy to happen. It’s naturally sexy and attractive, and people want to get close to it. The power of gratitude builds comfort and connected relatedness that enhances love. Gratitude also releases dopamine – a pleasure hormone. To achieve an orgasm, serotonin in a particular part of the brain has to drop quickly. There is a reported link between practicing gratitude and the intensity of orgasms.

7. Unconditional Love. Gratitude ties directly to love and a life that feels like love. Even more, gratitude opens you up to accept life and people the way they are and the way they are not.

8. Social equality and reform. When you’re thankful to someone, at that moment, there is an opportunity to share a space of equality that crosses class or social barriers. A grateful community experiences profound levels of equality and activity for the benefit of that community. If something like Marxism were to happen, it would have to be done entirely in the bubble of complete gratitude on the level that permanently eliminates the notion of entitlement or inequity. It’s not a likely eventuality with our current patterns of human responses. Still, we can start with a connected and sincere “thank you.”

9. Access to fortune. When you practice gratitude, you feel grateful AND fortunate. This practice expands your capacity to receive and store more good things in your life. Walking taller and “feeling lucky” is a common experience.

10. Successful business transactions. Gratitude is a peculiar and magical lubricant for a successful business deal to happen. It frequently results in receiving incredible service that often rewards you with discounts and quality of products and services that have an elevated value.

11. A Zen here and now experience. Gratitude doesn’t happen in the future or in the past. You can be thankful for both, but the experience of gratitude and the hormones released are a “now” experience. Practicing gratitude is a practice of thankfulness, contentment, and peace in each moment.

12. Better health. Digesting food when you are anxious or stressed is frequently not digested fully or absorbed into your system the way that it is designed. It affects your energy, immune system, the quality of your blood, and how all your cells respond to the absorption of nourishment. Practice gratitude when you eat to notice an improvement in your health.

13. Self-confidence. Practicing gratitude is a practice in releasing serotonin, a neurotransmitter much more complicated than just contributing feelings of well-being and happiness. Serotonin also impacts memory, reward, learning, cognition, and other physiological processes. It is a natural mood regulator that makes you feel emotionally stable, less anxious, tranquil, and even more focused and energetic. Psychology Today refers to serotonin as the “confidence molecule.” But beyond the chemical-hormonal release of serotonin, a practice of gratitude builds trust in yourself and your universe to believe in your dreams and fulfill your promises to reach your goals.

14. Experience of completion. Saying thank you at the end of a transaction or conversation signifies a satisfactory ending to that conversation or transaction. It also opens the opportunity for further interactions that are also satisfying and complete.

15. Access to simplicity and clarity as a lifestyle. You are grateful for the things that you like. The practice of gratitude filters out harmful elements in your life so that you can let them go and focus on the things that give your life intention and meaning. Complexities and distractions fall away.

16. Living a life of choice. Most of us live life in a way that feels like we don’t have a choice or say in the matter. And most of us cannot give a truthful answer to the question, “what do you really want in life?” Practicing gratitude hones your ability to actually want things in your life. The bonus of that ability is choosing what you want – learning that choice is a distinction that you can generate at any moment.

17. Empathy. When gratitude is present, you are more open to opportunities to make a difference and readily see humanity’s struggle. You can act effectively for the better.

18. Access to humor. When you are grateful, it is authentic, and in that space of authenticity, there is room for lightheartedness. Being authentic can come across as a context for comedy and self-deprecation.  Just don’t say anything that makes you particularly weak.  There is also a dismissal of attachment that comes with gratitude, and humorous things can happen. In giving thanks, even suffering can occur as laughable. You can enjoy life rather than internalize the suffering with significance and sorrow.

19. A ticket out of our own head. It can be a rough neighborhood in there. Being grateful provides access to actions and thoughts of compassion and positivity free from complaints and excuses, and “something is wrong here, and I can’t do anything about it.”  Gratitude gets you back outside of yourself. If you are stuck gazing at your own navel, being thankful is the remedy.

20. Emotional intelligence. If you are worried about your emotional intelligence or that of someone close to you, practicing gratitude is a brain-trainer that results in an attractive personality and higher competency.

21. Discard notions of insufficiency. You are not given an environment that lets you know that everything will work out and be ok. If you are like the rest of us, you are trained to approach everything in life as insufficient. Make an effort to apply gratitude to all areas of your life, especially those you feel are lacking. There is an immediate warmth of settledness and peace on the other side.

22. Heightened access to positive memories. Your brain stores a multitude of positive memories. Regret is a giant magnifying glass with a filter that blocks out the positive memories and reveals only larger-than-life negative ones. Practicing gratitude minimizes regret. Positive memories push through like flowers in a field, reaching sunlight. Life occurs as fresh and limitless.

So why aren’t we doing gratitude? I already told you. The answer is fear, entitlement, and the notion that something is wrong or lacking sufficiency or fairness. There is no space for gratitude to occur inside of a life of complaints, lies, excuses, and listening to the inner dialog of personal insufficiency. The default mode of the human condition is to avoid domination and responsibility. It takes work to practice gratitude. But at least it’s not something totally foreign. We can take small steps and become more proficient in the art of a life worthy of living as a generous expression of gratitude. It impacts your life, your future, your family, your community, and beyond.

My sister Teresa was born at a leper colony in Burundi because it was the closest hospital to where my missionary parents lived at the time. Leprosy is not an automatic seal of death. Yes, the chances of dying from it increase a little, but the disease is entirely treatable. The biggest problem with leprosy is that it affects the body visibly. Historically, people with it were labeled “unclean” and ostracized from society. In the middle ages, leprosy victims had to wear clothes that made them quickly identifiable and had to carry a bell to announce their presence. Other impacts of leprosy included loss of employment, social rejection, being disowned by the family, and generally considered distrustful and immoral. As cultures and societies understand leprosy, leper colonies slowly disappear, and victims become partially integrated with some unspoken social limitations. And, no. Teresa never had leprosy.

There’s a story in the New Testament of the Bible about ten lepers that Jesus healed. Two identity groups are mentioned – “unclean” lepers and Samaritans, who were also commonly rejected and treated with prejudicial disdain. If you want to read it, look up Luke 17:11-19. Jesus was traveling near the border of Galilee and Samaria. Ten lepers met him and, of course, socially distancing themselves, called out to Jesus. “Jesus, Master, have pity on us.” Jesus gave them a task. “Go and show yourselves to the priests.” As the ten men took action, they were “cleansed” from their leprosy. The impact is that they were no longer ostracized. Life went back to normal. They could find jobs, go back to their families, start dating, get married, shop, and do business without being marginalized like infectious zombies.

One of them, when he saw that the leprosy was gone, returned to where Jesus was. Enthusiastically praising God, threw himself at the feet of Jesus and thanked him. The story reveals that this person was also a Samaritan, another identity group of outcasts. The inference is that the other nine were Galilean like Jesus and felt sufficient entitlement not to return and give thanks.  

Jesus expressed his surprise that the only one of the ten to return with gratitude was a foreigner and acknowledged his faith and sent the man on his way.

Sometimes, I randomly ask my friends what they are thankful for and occasionally receive the response, “I don’t have any reason at the moment to be thankful.”

Of course you don’t. Gratitude is made up. Being thankful is an act of creating from nothing. It requires something from you.

Are you a person that deserves everything in life to be handed to you freely and bitter when something goes wrong – like not finding a parking space or ending up at the back of the line? How is the experience of being that way?

If culture is similar to that story, you’re in the majority – the 90 percent. Only one person out of ten isn’t so entitled to deny themselves the pleasure of being thankful. Don’t you think that it’s worth the effort? 

Note: There is a direct correlation between the eagerness to practice gratitude and the company we keep. People can suck the life out of us if we let them – especially if you tend toward being codependent. It may be necessary to distance yourself from these people at least emotionally so that you can give yourself space to heal with gratitude. As you transform your own life, they will also be drawn into the infection of a life that they can also love. 

PRACTICAL GRATITUDE EXERCISES

Exercise one – Gratitude Zones: For example, we all have to go to the bathroom. You most likely have privacy when you do it. For some of you, it’s the only privacy you have during your day. Make it your gratitude zone. It doesn’t need to be significant with a long list or a pious prayer time. Just think of a couple things for which you are thankful. Simple.

If you have multiple bathrooms that you use during the day, such as work and home, just choose one to start. When I worked as a DJ at bars and clubs, every urinal was my gratitude zone. My first thought of thankfulness was that I had a job. And then I would usually think of someone I worked with or a client that was a blessing to me that day or week.

The point is – a place that I went to frequently became somewhere sacred. I didn’t let the stupid judgmental voice in my head or superego dominate my valuable alone-time. It was reserved for gratitude. Find your “gratitude zone.”

Exercise two – Six plus one (6+1): This exercise is a list of seven things. Write down six things for which you are thankful every day and one regret that you have for which you can forgive. It might be an event that brought you shame. Your one item can also be someone else or group that you forgive. If you don’t write that one down in your list, that’s ok. It’s the one thing that is probably shouting at you most of your day anyway. Practice forgiving yourself. 

If your thanksgiving mode is being thankful that the world didn’t beat you up today, use that. Think of six ways that the world didn’t kick your ass and start noticing how your brain remaps your thinking.

Remember that it is YOUR list. Repeat items on your list as often as you want.

Exercise three: Make a reminder to yourself when you wake up to be thankful. When you begin your day with gratitude, you unlock your brain to be receptive to positive things. You are more alert to opportunities and have a generally happier day.

Exercise four – Gratitude by giving gifts: Sometimes, I like to show my gratitude by giving a gift or a card because I’m grateful and want to share it in a special way. I also notice that it creates a context of thanksgiving for them too, and they get to celebrate that moment by connecting with me and thanking me. It’s a happy space to experience together. HOWEVER. If you tend toward codependency, your motives can be contaminated, as will be the experience of receiving your gift. Check yourself and your heart before choosing this exercise that you are genuinely thankful. You could be giving something to buy a future favor or make up for what you did in the past. Remember that gratitude and “something is wrong here” or not good enough, can’t share the same thought nor the same gift.

Exercise or effort is what you do to form a habit.

Habits are what you have that form behavior.

Behavior shows who you are and how the world listens to you and perceives you.

Gratitude is Boolean in nature. A one or a zero. On or off. Not, “I’m a little or half-way thankful.” You’re thankful, or you’re not. Practice being deeply present to your gratitude.