If I had a magic wand and could give anyone just one gift, I would give them the gift of feeling gratitude — not thinking you should be grateful, or intellectually that you are a lucky person–but, instead, the whole body feeling of gratitude. That feeling is the ultimate Happiness Habit.
It’s much easier to feel irritated. We are invited, I am invited, into feeling irritated every day.
If you’ve been reading this newsletter very often, you know I am very grateful for my beloved husband Murray. He is a peach, and I let him know I adore him every day.
But I could choose to feel irritated with Murray all day long. Really. Here are some examples of things he does that could drive me crazy if I let them:
- Taking art I love off our walls without asking me and then hiding it in the closet.
- Forgetting to pay the house payment.
- Forgetting to pay the cable bill.
- Getting defensive and sullen when I comment on his forgetting to pay the house payment and the cable bill.
- Forgetting where we are going and driving past our destination, repeatedly.
- Knowing we need to leave in 10 minutes, because I reminded him twice, and his not being ready to go and so we are late.
I need to pause here for a minute in breathe. Just composing this list is reducing my immune system ability to fight off illness. Really. I can feel my body filling up with grit, and it doesn’t feel good in any way. While all these examples are true, and there are many more I could list, the fact that they are true doesn’t take me off the hook
For each of these incidents I can choose to be irritated and then irritate my life away, or I can choose to keep my sense of humor and my sense of perspective and always look for solutions.
For example, it distresses me that Murray forgot to pay at least two bills this past month. My brain is better adapted to paying bills, but I’m blind, so it makes taking care of that kind of paperwork more difficult for me. So Murray has gallantly taken on this job himself, even though his brain, his ADD brain, is not wired well for this activity.
So when I found out the bills hadn’t been paid, I let myself feel the fear, that feeling of being out of control, and then I asked a question. “Murray, how can I support your paying the bills on time?”
We decided we would sit down together on the 10th of each month and go over which bills Murray has paid and which are still outstanding. This should take us about five minutes. Murray will get support, I will get confirmation that the bills are paid, and neither of us will waste any of our precious time in irritation or shame.
Taking a Stand for Patience and Gratitude
We feel irritation only when we tell ourselves stories such as: “This is not fair!” Or “This shouldn’t be happening!” And, while both these stories might be true, they build the muscle in our brains that creates much unhappiness–on the road, at work, at home, with coworkers, during holiday shopping–everywhere.
Catch and Release
All you have to do is catch your irritation, kiss it and give it a lollipop, and smile. Yes, I said smile. If you physically smile even if you don’t feel like it, you will change your brain chemistry. Or you could yawn. Yawning energizes us and reboots our brain.
Smiling and yawning too hard for you? Too bad.
We choose all day long to transform the challenges that present themselves to us, or to let those challenges irritate and discourage us. Choose, choose, choose. So, are you going to irritate your life away or feel whole body gratitude? Need my magic wand?
Happy holidays
Vicki Hannah Lein