Finding Gratitude

When I first started to reroute my thoughts, it felt like all I was doing was catching my thoughts throughout the day. 

It was a lot more work than I had bargained for. 

At first, I would acknowledge that I was obsessing about something. 

I kept finding my thoughts rolling back to the same thoughts about the same things that were bothering me. 

It was usually someone else’s behavior or a situation that should be different. 

And my thoughts stayed laser focused on how wrong this all was.

How unfair, unjust, unreal. 

What I should have said or done differently. 

What should just naturally be different. 

BUT! 

Let me make it clear. 

When I was thinking about what I could have or should have done differently I was typically thinking about how I could have won, what would be easier, or how I wish it was.

I wasn’t looking for a way to connect or be better humans. I felt like I was right. They were wrong. The situation was on everyone but me. 

The only way it felt better, was to get some of what had hurt me, off my chest. 

That’s the thing about the past. 

I never had these tools that I had now and looking back I can see that whenever something was wrong in my life, I was letting my emotions lead. 

So many scenarios that escalated or toppled over because we weren’t treating each other well. 

So many moments with both sides looking to win, feeling justified, feeling like that was the right path to protecting ourselves when in reality, it was the most hurtful path for everyone. 

So many relationships ruined. 

So much pain caused. 

So many situations escalated. 

So many people replaying the past and getting stuck there pretending that they aren’t. 

Pretending that they are fine. 

Pretending that they don’t care. 

Saying one thing out loud while your body and brain feel the opposite is a surefire path to unalignment within ourselves. 

When I first started rerouting my thoughts, it made me really aware of how often I mistook honesty for venting. 

I thought that I was just keeping it real, but really- I was just looking for outlets to get some of this off of me. I thought that talking about it would help me. When the conversation didn’t help, I looked for what I needed in others by talking about it more with a variety of people.

It didn’t change a thing. In fact, all it did was make the conversations stale and whoever I was talking with ended up doing the same thing and venting about the things in their lives that were bothering them too. The thoughts that they were replaying in their brain, everything that had them pretending that everything was fine on the surface when inside they too were a mess. 

It seemed to be all anyone knew. 

Often it wasn’t talking for a solution. It was talking to be sure of how right we were and how wrong the other party was. 

I decided to stop talking badly about things but then I found myself with nothing to say. 

I quit drinking at the same time and I also felt like I had nothing to do. 

I didn’t know who I was anymore. I had no idea how to function. 

I was dealing with so much loss at that point in my life and I honestly didn’t see a lot of good in anything. I felt like life in general was a lie and that I was stuck playing a game that I had no desire to be playing. 

I just wanted to go home, but I didn’t know what or where home was anymore. 

Longing for something so deeply with no idea what or where it is or how to get there- was infuriating. 

I was so lost I felt like that word alone didn’t even begin to cut it. 

Thinking about changing everything and finding my way through this part of my life felt like it would never end. 

Thinking about the long game made me want to throw in the towel. 

Depression felt like it was creeping into my body – intertwining with my muscles, my bones, my mind- taking over every piece of me on the inside. 

At the time it truly didn’t feel like I could do anything to stop it and it felt like it would never lift off of me again. 

At the same time I was going through all of this a global pandemic hit. One that required people to wear a mask on their face for the first time in my life. 

I didn’t realize how much I relied on peoples mouths and faces to be able to understand them until that mask mandate. 

Taking away my ability to read people’s lips and read their facial expressions made my brain trauma/hearing loss situation impossible. I could no longer fake my way through anything. 

Everyone sounded like Charlie Browns teacher and I couldn’t figure out anything anyone was saying. 

Bosses, coworkers and customers were constantly frustrated with me. They wouldn’t pull the mask down, write it out, slow down or talk to me face to face anymore. 

It was shouting things out and then screaming at me that I didn’t know what was going on. 

That was the nail in the coffin.

Lord, take me out. 

I was exhausted in ways that I have never felt exhaustion before. I couldn’t see a single way through this. 

What I didn’t realize was that this was just the beginning. 

I was about to lose my jobs and all ability to financially make a dime. 

Nobody would hire me when I was honest about hearing loss. 

We discovered that I was allergic to every single kind of hearing aid available to me and my ears started growing painful cysts that would push them out. They didn’t stop growing until I stopped wearing them. 

My debt built up and buried me. 

My audiologist recommended disability and said that my hearing loss was so severe that I would be a candidate. 

I didn’t know that would start a 4 year battle with the disability office where I would involve our local government offices, have them write letters on my behalf and have to put in the work of a full time job to try to get any type of assistance. 

I didn’t know that the federal office in Virginia would tell me that “hearing loss isn’t considered a disability”, only to have every other office tell me that it is but had no way to help me. I didn’t know that the local disability office would flat out refuse any assistance when the denial papers were full of links that wouldn’t work. 

I didn’t know that the entire system was broken. 

I didn’t know that I would have no other option but to sell my house or lose it. 

I didn’t know that I would sell it and buy and RV and leave the only place I have ever known for a life of complete unknowns. 

I had no idea I would make it through if I am honest. 

I didn’t have any desire to at that point, because I had no idea if life would ever get any better. 

When I realized that nothing was going to save me from this situation I had to make a decision that at the time, logically felt like the worst one. 

Everyone told me not to give up on disability. There were so many stories of people winning the war after a ten year battle.

Thinking about doing this again for even a moment crushed me. 

They had already successfully made it so that I couldn’t make my appeals continuous – so it wasn’t going back from the original date. It was restarting every time. I had to weigh my options. 

I could keep fighting or I could throw in the towel. 

If I kept fighting, I knew that I still had years to go. I could put all my energy into that, something that would keep me locked into a state that I didn’t even want to be in for the entire duration of the fight, or I could put all of that energy into something good. 

Something that I built. 

What I was building, I didn’t know. 

All I did know is that when I thought about putting all my energy into myself, everything negative felt like it lifted. I could feel a buzz inside my body. I knew that it was the right path. 

My logical mind tried to talk me out of it a lot. Called me names and told me what a quitter I was. Told me to stick it out and keep going. 

I pictured myself getting approved. I thought of how it felt to receive the money. 

None of that felt right anymore. 

I didn’t even want to win that war. 

I wanted something so much bigger than all of that. 

Every part of me was in chaos. 

If anything was going to change, I was going to have to change it. 

I dove all in and learned how to be a life and health coach and found that it was one of the most natural things. It felt like coming home the minute I signed up. I listened to podcasts that were all about taking charge of your life and creating dreams. I spent a lot of time outside and moving my body. 

I started getting aware of how much time my thoughts were spent on negative people, situations and emotions. 

I started rerouting it into gratitude. 

I learned that even on the darkest days, gratitude could lift it all. 

I noticed that being aware of my thoughts allowed me to accept just how much of this chaos I was creating by playing these thought loops within.

I saw that I had created a background built on fear and worry. Even when I was trying to keep my thoughts positive, my body was still playing it all behind the scenes. 

I realized how deep this went. 

This wasn’t something that I created overnight and it wasn’t something that I was going to change overnight. 

This was something that I had been building my entire life.  

Awareness, acceptance and rerouting of my thoughts was a full time job. It took a lot of letting go of my old life and cutting out a lot of habits, people and situations so I could create a safe place to heal. It took years to get where I am now, and while I was doing it I didn’t think about the long game. I took it day by day, minute by minute. I was consistent and I cheered for myself for all that I was accomplishing. 

Big wins were great but all those little daily wins were where it was at. I knew that those little things- were responsible for building everything. 

Without them, nothing changed. 

The little things truly were the big things. 

I thought about all the people that I love so deeply. The ones that are my safest, happiest spaces. The ones that make me feel grateful to be alive despite anything that may be happening. 

All of a sudden I could see so clearly that my focus had been on all the wrong things. 

I have so much that makes me happy and makes life feel easy, fun and free. Why wasn’t my energy going back into this?

I didn’t have an answer- but I could feel that same feeling internally that told me I was on to something big. 

This was the right path to explore. 

I found so much gratitude thinking about the people, places and experiences that had made living feel so alive, so beautiful, so fun to be a part of. 

I was ready to dive in and see what gratitude brought to my life. 

Gratitude started a new beginning for me. 

The depression lifted.

The stronger my gratitude got, the less accessibility depression had to me. 

My thoughts were clear. 

My intentions were pure. 

If someone threw their emotions my way I could remember that it wasn’t about me. I could remember to stay calm. I could remember to stay present. It allowed me to truly start hearing others. 

Of course it wasn’t always perfect, but I was catching myself quickly and getting right back on track. 

That was huge. 

I wasn’t getting taken over by emotions anymore. This shifted the entire experience. It didn’t have to lead to chaos. It could lead to calm for more than just me. We could communicate better and all get something from it. 

One day while I was meditating in a beautiful setting I realized that I felt like I was home. 

That thing that I had been searching for so desperately for a lifetime… I found it. 

I am my home, and I want to be here now. 

I connected with myself in ways that I never knew were possible and the best part about it was that now that I realized I was here, I knew that this was another beginning. 

Everything that I will look for, I am able to find within. 

My external world aligns with everything that I am within. 

The challenges will come through the things that I wish for, giving me an opportunity to prove that I am ready for more or highlighting that I need more time to heal. 

Things that I never saw coming will throw me off to test me and challenge me to keep searching for the lessons through it. 

My ability to find something good is strong. 

It is part of what makes me, me. 

Gratitude will ground me to my home no matter where I go, no matter how I am tested. 

Gratitude is and always has been, the answer.