These Rwandan women are simply incredible. They are bright and articulate, well educated and willing to do what ever it takes to succeed in business, with one caveat. Each woman expressed how her business model included more than profitability, it must also serve the greater good, the Rwandan people who live in scattered villages and live in extreme poverty. They actually do want to create peace and prosperity for all through business. 

I was asked to present a business issue to the group. The process is the genius behind EWF International, but it can be challenging. Basically, an issue is presented to the group, then the group is allowed to ask clarifying questions that I may answer. The last round is feedback from every forum member. This is the part where I don’t get to talk. No explanation, no “yeah, but,” no excuses. This is my opportunity to just be still, take it all in and actually hear what is being said. 

I mention all of this because somewhere in the clarifying question stage, I felt an old familiar companion creep in. His name is Self Doubt. He had lots to say to me as I tried to answer questions like, “what makes you qualified as a coach?” “What makes you different from other coaches?” “Why would I want to work with you?” I could feel the panic rising. My old companion, Self Doubt, whispered, “see, they know you…they see through you…who do you think YOU are, anyway?” I felt totally exposed and vunerable. In walked another old buddy, You’re Not Good Enough. He sat down beside me.

Later a friend told me that she saw me turn to moosh. She said that because I have always been known for directness with myself and others. My dad used to tell me that I called a spade a spade and sometimes I called it a damned old shovel. The truth is I allowed Self Doubt to creep in and take over. It happens to all of us from time to time and that’s just one of the many reasons I chose coaching as a profession.

Feeling vulnerable, belly up, is a horrible feeling of powerlessness. That is a false conclusion, of course, because each of us has a companion like Self Doubt who lingers just below the surface, but we don’t have to buy what he’s selling. We don’t have to give in and indulge him and let him bring in his buddies, Fear, Shame, Worthlessness. We have a choice. We have a great counter-measure and that’s Awareness.

From a place of awareness, I was able to hear the words without letting them completely engulf my mind. In Awareness I can see that as a human I will always have moments in which I feel inadequate. They are a natural function of the wounded ego, the false self. I can embrace them and say, “I know you are afraid, but I love you anyway. We can do it anyway.” Fear and action are not mutually exclusive. We can be afraid and do it anyway.

My willingness to be vulnerable and to experience it with awareness was actually a gift. I remembered that I can be belly up and I won’t die. I can always stand up.

According to the Oxford English Dictionary (OED), gratitude is defined as:

gratitude |ˈgratəˌt(y)oōd|
noun
the quality of being thankful; readiness to show appreciation for and to return kindness : she expressed her gratitude to the committee for their support.
ORIGIN late Middle English : from Old French, or from medieval Latin gratitudo, from Latin gratus ‘pleasing, thankful.

Today’s call brought a focus on gratitude as a way to stay present. Gratitude is more than just a quality, as defined above. To me, gratitude is a way of being, a choice and a lifestyle. Gratitude is a goal and living in gratitude is an ongoing process. Gratitude is a measure of personal honesty, emotional availability, compassion and generosity. Gratitude is a measure of authentic abundance and it is available to any of us when we make the quiet choice to be grateful in what ever moment we find ourselves.

It is impossible for anger and gratitude to co-exist. I cannot be angry with you if I am grateful for you. I cannot make myself wrong if I am grateful for my life. I cannot blame others if I practice gratitude for what is, regardless of how I may feel.

I began to practice gratitude regularly around 1997. That was the first year that I kept a Gratitude Journal. Each day I noted five things for which I was grateful. I usually did this at the end of the day, which brought a lot of awareness into every day. I had to be present in the moment in order to notice and make note of a moment for which I could be grateful. The practice of the Gratitude Journal helped me remain accountable to my commitment. I got up each day knowing that I had to find at least five things I could feel grateful for by the end of the day. On days that I just didn’t get to it or forgot or feel very grateful, I’d always make those days up the next time I went to my journal. Once in a while, I’d get a few days behind and have to come up with 15 things!

The practice proved to be useful and fulfilling, so I kept it up. After a while, noticing what’s right in my world became a habit, like complaining, only the opposite. It seemed like good things happened all the time! Why? It’s like when you buy a new car and then you start noticing how many other cars like it are driving down the road. Grateful greatness was popping all around me because I was willing to see it, acknowledge it, feel it and claim it.

I pulled the 1997 version of my Gratitude Journal from the bookshelf today and shared a few of my entries with my client. I’ll share them here:

April 11, 1997: feeling in-touch with myself, jazz music, God within me, my higher self, my sense of security; April 9, 1997: Easter eggs and not having to dye any this year, the freckles on Heather’s (my daughter) face, Brooke’s (daughter) big smile, Hillary’s (daughter) growing sense of humor; April 14, 1997: Making good choices for me, taking care of my family, seeing Jennifer’s (daughter) smile, Dr. Pepper, my years with Lee (deceased husband, 2002). April 16, 1997: facing my fears, learning how to relax, the sun after many days of rain, friendship, this moment that is my life.

Looking back at these grateful moments from 11 years ago bring immense gratitude to me in the now. My freckle faced daughter is on her way to Vet school, my daughter with the growing sense of humor will graduate from Nursing school on May 10, 2008, my daughter with the big smile is a grown woman who is married with three children of her own. It is gratifying to see that I had actually stopped to be grateful for my husband, Lee. I had no way of knowing then that he had just five short years to live.

That is the point of gratitude. That’s why we care. That’s why we cultivate a grateful heart. We cultivate gratitude because we cannot change the past, nor can we know the future. What we have is now, this day, this moment in which to offer up a grateful notion.

Gratitude takes courage. In the moment of heart-breaking disappointment, the humanity within us will not suggest gratitude. That is when making gratitude a way of being can mean the most. When we live with gratitude, we are never alone or down and out. With gratitude we rest assured that eventually we will see what’s right in even the seemingly worst person or situation, even if we don’t like it or want to at that moment.

Today, I am grateful that I am feeling more like myself, happy and optimistic, the blue sky, my husband, my children and grandchildren, my health, the little bird just outside my window, spring and you.

Keep a Gratitude Journal. It will change your life!

When I became willing to show up 100% responsible for my life and my relationship with her, I no longer needed to blame her. I did not have many opportunities to make external choices when I was a child, what child does? But, I had never put aside this deep sense of lack of control and continued to show up as a needy 10 year old, approval seeking child living inside a woman’s body. When I showed up as an adult, things began to change.

I just wanted to make it clear that I am responsible for me and you are responsible for you…in any relationship, we have a choice as to how we will show up and what our experience will be. Each situation will either inform us or affect us. This is our choice.

So what is an SRP anyway? You’ll most likely be able to identify a self-righteous position when you have a strong reaction, judgment or opinion about another person or a situation. It can be defined as that moment in which we are absolutely certain we know what is right for someone else or what is wrong with them.

The ego loves SRPs. It can’t get enough. Just thinking about an SRP is like rolling candy on the tongue. We savor it because it’s just so delicious to be focused on someone other than ourselves. How clear it all is when someone else is clearly being a sanctimonious, self-righteous bitch or an arrogant ass. We have a sixth sense about it; we can smell it a mile away.

The unfortunate news is that this is nearly always a projection of our own egoic perspective.  Yes, yes, no matter how unbelievable that may seem, we are able to pick up what’s right or wrong in another through the miracle process known in transpersonal psychology and made famous by Carl Jung as projection. Projection is the involuntary transfer of denied aspects of the self onto others in order that we may see them. We can project light as well as dark aspects of the self that we just cannot accept or see in our own personalities. To some the concept may seem ridiculous, frightening or even boring. But it’s a phenomenon that isn’t really boring at all. It’s pretty interesting once we are willing to open up to the possibility that this could actually be true.

So, here’s an example from my own life. I’ve spent most of my adult life believing with every fiber of my being that my sister is a sanctimonious, self-righteous bitch. She’s 7+ years older than me, she thinks she know everything, including what’s right for me and the rest of the world. No one can help her, but then she’s the martyr because she has to do everything herself. When someone else does do something, of course, they did it wrong! I threw up my hands in surrender a few years ago. I decided that if that’s the game and I can’t change it, then I wouldn’t play anymore.

Of course the cost of that position was that I would not be able to have a relationship with my only sister. I’m now 52, so that should give you a pretty good idea of how attached I have been to this SRP.

In my next blog, I’ll continue with the rest of the story. I’ll explain how I came to understand my view and reaction to this relationship and what my choices were as well as how my choices actually transformed all aspects of my relationship with my sister.

Thanks for reading.