Thanksgiving

Our brains have a strong biological tendency to notice what “is wrong”.  Our attention is drawn to what is out of place, or insufficient or irregular in some way and we respond with worry or reaction or resistance to this “arising” out of the field of perception. A large part of our unconscious waking attention habitually seeks out the “problem” and there is a sense of positive reinforcement for noticing and acting on it.  On one hand finding a problems is not what we want, there is effort, a disturbance of plans or peace,  but there is also accomplishment in this activity.  It is connected with our sense of control and mastery in life.

Yes, lets be grateful and enjoy the satisfaction of control.  We have it in many little ways in everyday life.  We can change the temperature on our thermostats in our warm houses, and we go to work to afford them.  For all of this great gratitude is natural.

When things are not going our way, when the problem arises and we cannot seem to change it, we have difficulty with gratitude and instead we feel a loss in life.  It is hard to feel the full feelings of gratitude when we are in a state of loss.  We can logically tell ourselves we should be grateful because we still have so much and it is true, but feeling that state of  “fullness” is another matter.

In our deepest wisdom we know that life itself is a gift beyond comprehension.  We do sense that the highest response to our life, even if we are in the midst of dying, is total gratitude.