The question ‘Why Me?’ haunts us for every challenge that that we face. We, however, quickly learn to overcome the challenge by expressing gratitude, which is one of the most important values across humankind. Often gratitude is expressed towards ‘what is’ as opposed to ‘what could have been’ in a worst-case scenario either in our own lives or in comparison with others. While this form of expression does enable us to face the challenge and overcome it, it does not help us overcome the sense of lack that gets created within us every time we question ‘Why Me?’.
Gratitude for me is the learning from every experience, whether good or bad that I have been through. These learnings or as I call them blessings are what made me who I am today – resilient but vulnerable and capable but imperfect. Most importantly it has connected me to the humanness within me and allows me to ‘just be’ who I am.
Being able to view our challenges as learning and growing opportunities helps us shift our focus from a sense of lack to contentment. It also makes us better, stronger, and more compassionate human beings. When we count these challenges as blessings, we begin to understand that it’s the challenges that made us the version of ourselves today.
“Gratitude is the only value that shifts our attitudes from lack to contentment.”
As parents, we face numerous challenges while raising our children – some physical, some emotional, some mental and some just thoughts! The biggest challenge I have faced as a parent is the lack of physical strength to be able to keep up with everything I want to do for and do with AJ. I had, throughout my post-partum wondered how some women can handle home, going back to work and manage to spend time with their children while I was still in the ‘recovery phase’ well over a year after AJ was born. The comparison made me focus on all that I don’t have creating a huge sense of lack within me. I can from my experience say that the sense of lack behaves like a dominoe effect, once triggered, it impacts every aspect of our being. At times I had taken this frustration out on AJ which was a blessing in disguise because I knew I never wanted to be a parent who vented out my misplaced anger on AJ. That set me off on yet another journey of course correction! It made me take my lack of strength as a challenge and see how best I could create an environment that AJ really needed. Here are a few things I did do:
I learnt to ask for help when I needed it.
I learnt to be compassionate when I didn’t receive the help.
I learnt to come up with creative solutions to ensure her needs are met.
I learnt to forgive myself, ask for forgiveness and when necessary, forgive in case of a shortcoming.
“True Forgiveness Is When You Can Say ‘Thank You For That Experience’.”
– Oprah Winfrey
I learnt, that while it is important to be flexible with our values and views, it is important that we don’t settle for less without trying!
Here is how we have practised gratitude over the years. I must confess that every big change has thrown me of this track but coming back to it has helped me become a better version of myself.
Perspective
Is there a life that we know of with more hardships than ours? May be someone who grew up without a parent/ parents or a roof over their head or access to food or humanness in terms of compassion or respect. Can we for one moment imagine that life and write a small paragraph from their point of view?
From this perspective, let us look at our lives and count our blessings!
Relationships
Let’s list out all the people we have come across in your life and the people who are in your life now.
We will realise that, while coming across some names feel good, for some, we might feel hurt/ anger.
While it is natural to feel grateful for the ones that made us feel good. For the ones through whom we felt hurt, let us be grateful to them for having made us stronger, wiser, and showing us how not to be and what not to do.
Events
Let us travel back in our lives for as far back as we can remember and list out all specific events for which we are grateful and why.
Let us list out events that we felt were painful and unfair. Look at them again and re-think what we have learnt and how we have evolved as a person due to that pressure.
There may be people we have come across or live with who would have hurt us or who we would have hurt. In some of the cases we would have not been able to forgive them or ask for forgiveness.
In the case of people who hurt us, would it be possible to be thankful for the learning and strength that came out of this pain? The time it takes to do this may differ for each individual and each situation and that is alright. I have personally taken years to get here for certain situations and people. But when we do get there the final step would be to forgive all those people and completely let go of the past bitter experiences.
Let us also take this opportunity to own our shortcomings, take responsibility for our actions and seek forgiveness from all those people.
There may be certain times where we carry the burden of certain actions – guilt. It is important to detach ourselves from those actions by understanding that it is those experiences that moulded us into stronger and wiser people. It is also important to acknowledge that we did the best we could in those times with the information and experience we had. So let us take this opportunity to forgive ourselves ease out the burden of guilt we are carrying.
Let us know how you feel at the end of this exercise! It has helped us stay grounded and true to what we believe in. We sincerely hope you benefit from this!
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