Rothshank - Tiny Gratitudes

I was tired in so many ways. A podcast I had listened to with Brother David Steindl-Rast kept coming back to me. Can you be grateful for everything? he asked. No, not for everything, but in every moment. I then listened to his TED talk where he said, Its not happiness that makes us grateful. Its gratefulness that makes us happy.

I was hungry for these reminders and curious to know more. I wanted to be more grateful but was not sure how to make it happen when my automatic response to hard times was negative. I wondered what gratitude really meant. If I were able to create feelings of gratefulness by learning to see differently, then gratitude no longer required a brief positive transaction or getting something external that I wanted. I began to think about the spectrum of gratefulness in my life, from getting new shoes to waking up to a new day. When so many parts of my life felt out of my control, acknowledging the importance of my perspectives was powerful.

It was clear that my response to the unpredictable, rather than the actual circumstance, determined if I lived a life of resilience and joy. I decided to make a weekly painting based on gratitude to help train my brain to be alert to ways I could be thankful despite the conditions. My husband, Justin, is a potter, and he agreed to create a weekly piece of pottery also inspired by gratitude. Our goal was to cultivate gratefulness in a way that clearly acknowledged difficulty and simultaneously allowed beauty. We planned to post our weekly work on Instagram with the hashtag #rothshankgratitudeproject and to write monthly updates on our progress. Maybe gratitude could be contagious? At least it would be a way to stay accountable.

Collaboration with Justin encouraged a supportive dialogue. It was fun to see when our gratitude overlapped, when we surprised each other with what we saw, and when one of us needed help feeling thankful. It was a reminder to connect with each other over more than the practicalities of work and family life. We hoped it would inspire us to slow our pace and learn to view our everyday lives differently, as a gift. It felt good to be grateful even when it was not easy.

It is my own small experiment in what it means to choose grateful living. With three children and our family business, I cant say choosing gratitude relieved what often felt like a hectic schedule. More than once I uttered the words, I still have to do my gratitude this week! None of these paintings represents a moment of pure success, joy, or ease. Each one holds the potential to represent a fear, loss, or challenge. All of the feelings remained but the focus was allowed to shift. Learning to adjust perceptions that had become habit strengthened my ability to hope.

Hope, the kind that accepts what is true or unknowable while being open to what is possible, was a byproduct of this gratitude project. I found that processing what happened in my days with a gratitude filter required that I be hopeful. In Krista Tippets book Becoming Wise, she says, Hope, like every virtue, is a choice that becomes a habit that becomes spiritual muscle memory. Its a renewable resource for moving through life as it is, not as we wish it to be. Each one of the fifty-two paintings that I posted on Instagram felt as if it were an individual work of art. I recorded the day and time of each painting along with notes on where I found gratitude.

Having all of these micro moments together now creates a new macro work of art. It highlights the value of a committed practice and is for me a reminder that the small decisions we make daily add up to the experience of life. Im still learning what it means to allow unconditional gratitude to lead. I want to value what I have now and open my eyes to everyday opportunities instead of waiting for impossibly perfect conditions to experience gratefulness. If nothing else, practicing gratitude has taught me to be more gracious with myself and others. Being grateful does not result in an easy life.

It does allow me to relax in the knowledge that things will sometimes go wrong. That is unpreventable but it is not the end of everything. Even knowing that I will sometimes fail at finding ways to be grateful is somehow reassuring. Accepting that as inevitable means its more about the trying than the outcome. Looking back over a year of striving for gratitude, I can see more clearly how singular mistakes and failures matter less than the big picture effort to persist in a positive direction. I will mess up.

When I slip, I will be grateful for the chance to try again. I hope these pages will delight and inspire you to uncover your own tiny gratitudes.