Do You have to practice gratitude?
“Courage is the most important of all the virtues because without courage, you can’t practice any other virtue consistently.”
― Maya Angelou
There is a recurrent theme in my life recently and it has to do with “Words”.
Waking up this morning and I came across a post from a friend of mine with the word “Fearless”. My friend shared a repost he had from a few years ago. And in this post, he shared this morning was the word “FEARLESS” that was printed on a marketing material by a gift shop that sells bracelets.
I recognized the company that makes these and to be more specific, it came from a company that makes bracelets you receive you keep one and give the other one away. Each set of bracelets is a carefully packaged with a sticker inside with one single word, in this case, it was the word “Fearless”.
All my life, I was living in fear. (well, at least up until the moment I found my truth); I was afraid of being different. I was afraid of being seen as different.
Being different feels like the emperor in the emperor’s new clothes story. Being different feels like I don’t have myself covered!
I can’t tell you how many times I have to hide my crutches so I can take a “normal” picture.
Being different is like the emperor marching on the street and the child called out “You are naked!” The sudden shame that arises, it was that constant feeling of being called out by people made me who I am today.
This morning as I saw the word “FEARLESS”, and I was trying to think about the time of how I felt. If you were to ask me to use a word to describe all painful experiences I have lived through, I rarely use the word “FEARLESS” because I don’t believe one can and will be ever FEARLESS.
There are many scholars out there who study the influence of words from our subconscious mind. Every human on this planet have one thing in common and that is we are heavily influenced by our mind. The words you say in your mind is a result of the underlying thoughts that manifest from your subconscious mind. This is how the law of attraction and Neurolinguistic Programming (NLP) is derived: learning a new language in your mind.
Changing the way our mind thing is great! It is effective and this is the reason why many experts encourage you to practice gratitude and affirmations because the more you practice with these tools; your subconscious mind begins to shift the way you think about things.
There’s a problem with this, in my opinion.
Take my story, for example, by age 34 I was on my path to dive deeper to self-development. All these books I have read talked about the importance of gratitude, positive affirmations. They worked, only 50% of the time, for me. It was one of those hit & miss thing.
Sometimes I feel good and sometimes I feel bad. It was 50/50 for me.
The problem focusing on changing the language of the mind is that you and I are human. Human is not just the mind, but we have a heart. You are welcome to substitute the word “heart” for “spirit”, “Chi”, “Soul”, “ethos”, or perhaps you’re like me, I use the word “emotions”.
By addressing our subconscious mind and giving it a new language is only half of the battle. The other half of the battle starts with your heart. What word do you use to describe yourself focuses on the first step of your consciousness; the next step is to feel connected to the word you use.
As much as I love the idea of practicing gratitude and affirmation, when I am not connected to the words I am saying, I would never act in such a way that reflects what I believe.
I can say the phrase “I believe I am beautiful” a hundred times, but until I am fully connected to what I am saying, it would be quite difficult to actually living it. I believe this is why sometimes you see individuals who practice gratitude, uses tons of affirmation when you examine the way they live their life, you feel the disconnect behind their words.
Going back to the word “FEARLESS”, this is not the word of my choice in describing a type of behavior. My personal favorite is the word “COURAGE”. One of the definitions for the word “COURAGE” is strength in the face of pain or grief”. The word “FEARLESS” feels like an unpleasant beast that we are working to get rid of, but yet COURAGE is the strength that rises above our pain and sorrow.
We don’t need to fill out days with gratitude and affirmation, what we need is the courage to rise above those days when gratitude and affirmation simply do not work.
“Those tearful nights turned into words of solace…. The more I wrote about my thoughts, the more I became aware of this duality: There were my thoughts, and then there was me. I became curious about exploring the deeper meaning of “self”.” — Michelle Kuei/Perfectly Normal: An Immigratn’s Story of Making It In America.
Warmly,
Michelle
