Gratitude and thanks-giving

My fiftieth year had come and gone,

I sat, a solitary man,

In a crowded London shop,

An open book and empty cup

On the marble table-top.

While on the shop and street I gazed

My body of a sudden blazed;

And twenty minutes more or less

It seemed, so great my happiness,

That I was blessed and could bless.

― William Butler Yeats

By: Matt Auron

Thanksgiving week is one of my favorites of the year. In LA, the world slows down and I can get to places in the city that are inaccessible in the normal gridlock. The air is crisper, it gets dark sooner, and there is a sense that yes, even in LA there is seasons. It’s also one of my favorite weeks to slow down and reflect. I intentionally try to do as little as possible and end work as early in the week as I can. At least Wednesday afternoon through Sunday the world pauses, breaks bread with loved ones and friends, and initiates the holiday season.

For me, Thanksgiving is the beginning of the end, as a few short weeks later the December holidays hit and the year is officially over. I have always thought that thanksgiving is a part of a greater process: to begin the turndown into the time of reflection, connection with meaning and intention setting into a new year. Taking stock and beginning the holiday turndown with gratitude and feasting. Sometimes however, the feasting turns into an argument with your cousin about politics or your uncle gets a bit too drunk and scares the kids, and so it is. The holidays remind us that there are people that we love that are gone, and we miss them. The opening of our heart and lowering of our guard exposes the sensitive spots, and for all of our development, we are still a child in the house we grew up in. Old wounds make us wince and we feel sad and sometimes lost and we may be reminded of old, painful narratives that govern family behavior. The holidays are filled with ghosts.

And yet, it is still a wonderful life. When I get torn and twisted in some aspect of my life that I am unhappy about, I am not connected to this. Much of the time this stems from something not going the way I wanted it to and in this, I feel like complaining. I get irritable. I make others irritable. It’s hard. And yet, there is something the great spiritual traditions agree on: the power of gratitude, or appreciation, of blessing to bring us out of the place of powerlessness and despondence. This mechanism is a super power. When I can orient towards gratitude (sometimes initially forcing myself to do so!), I take myself out of the place of willfulness and into the place of peace and surrender. There is no gratitude without the acknowledgement that I am only a piece on the cause and effect of the world. I have been given much, and have been so fortunate in what I have experienced. In this is a great spirit of abundance and warmth and I feel open and positive to the flow of gifts that have benefitted me in my life remembering that I have been blessed, many times over. It helps me to reflect and meditate on this regularly. Using gratitude as a focus for silent meditation is a powerful tool.

Gratitude supercharges when I offer it to another. We live in a world bereft of honoring and gratitude. Most of us live underappreciated and thus pass this on vs the opposite. I know that when I have been powerfully appreciated, it changes my day and sometimes my week. It fills me up and gives me fuel. One of the most powerful activities you can do at an offsite is to offer gratitude to each team member, giving everyone a chance on the hotseat and having everyone else state out loud what they appreciate about them. It never fails to transform the room and frequently gets emotional. The workforce is sadly bereft of appropriate honoring and gratitude as well. It falls on us, the blessed, to continue the cycle of blessing. As we do this, as we appreciate another, the cycle of blessing flows back to us, over and over. We leave our pain and limitations and stories and are put in the place of wholeness: a whole person blessing another whole person.

This kind of energy, this giving of thanks can create emotional safety and resilience and a powerful culture for performance in a team or business. Appreciation and gratitude are rocket fuel for human potential. A valuable culture practice is to deeply and publicly honor those who are role models of the core values of your business. Jim Kouzes and Barry Posner call this Encouraging the heart and it has been shown in leadership research as one of the most powerful tools a leader has.

I find that when I access this place, it helps me reframe and come to peace with the wonderful and imperfect humanity that is myself and my family. I can honor and love those who have left and tell stories over the dinner table of their quirks. I can see how people have helped me grow and the gifts they have given me over the years. I can see how everyone is doing the best with what they have. I can embrace their humanity, and my own. I find a few people that have impacted me this year, that I have deep appreciation for, and I mirror back to them the gift they have given me.

As I write that last line, I can feel my body exhale. It’s time to enter the chute of reflection. And as the world begins to slow down at the end of the year, amidst noise of a noisy and chaotic world, I remember: I am blessed, and I can bless.