Inspiration short #8: Be grateful

by Danielle Charles

Inspiration Short #8: Take some time out of your day to think of what you feel grateful for

I absolutely love fall.  I look forward to it every year, and I would venture to say that it might just be my favorite season of all.  Of course,  I probably say that at the onset of every season, but I really mean it when I say it about autumn –  I think that the crimsons and golds capture my heart in a way that even the palest blush of apple blossoms in the spring cannot.  Lazy afternoon walks admiring the bejeweled hillsides. Evenings around a crackling fire sipping spiced apple cider.  Autumn slows life down and infuses it with a sense of warmth and comfort.

And every aspect of autumn seems all the sweeter for the knowledge that too soon, it will be gone. Before long, all of those brilliant leaves will fall to the ground, and the frosts will fall harder and more frequently. The earth will be transformed from a place of life and bounty to a barren and cold landscape of scraggly branches and dying grass . And for me and many others, the warmth and joy felt so deeply as the season begins become replaced with a sense of melancholy and gloom as it recedes.

On some level, I think we all experience this yearly malaise, and over the years I  have learned not to view it negatively, but to embrace it as a necessary and healthy expression of the yearly cycle. From Celtic spirituality to Traditional Chinese Medicine, fall is viewed as a time of death and loss. The yearly cycle draws to a close, the warmth and light of the sun dwindles away, and the earth and all of it’s bounty of plant life dies, leaving us to fend for ourselves in a harsh climate and barren landscape. How natural it is for us to mourn then. In Chinese Medicine, the emotion associated with the fall is none other than grief. We mourn for what we have lost, for the passing of the year, and for our own plight as we face the dark season.

But there is another aspect of this season, and one that balances the sense of loss and darkness:  gratitude. Being grateful accomplishes two essential things. For one, it allows us to recognize that for all we have lost in the ending of the year, there is far more that we haven’t. Indeed, we come to realize that we haven’t actually lost anything at all –  the warmth, light and nourishment that have disappeared from our external surroundings can still be found within if we simply look there.  Gratitude also grants us the perspective about what things are truly essential to our lives,  our health and to our continued survival. Being grateful is like being a little seed, holding to what is essential so that you can grow and be reborn with the spring.

So before the gloom of rainy, cold and leafless days sets upon you, take a few minutes to make a list of what you are most grateful for in your life. I have gone as far as to create something called a gratitude practice in my daily routine, usually before bed, where I think of the things that I appreciated most in my day, in my year, or even in my life. Some days I might only be able to think of a few simple things, but even then, it still manges to bring warmth and joy to my spirit. Without even trying, I begin to let go of all those thoughts, daily hurts and worries that are simply not needed or useful for my life’s journey. How could they be, when there is so much to be grateful for?