Sunday 22 March 2015

The risks of retrospective gratitude.

If only we could truly be glad for what we have in this moment, right now.  Retrospective gratitude is to me the saddest and heaviest of emotions.
Reflecting back brings a rush of warmth and joy, only to be followed by a heavy hearted sadness when the realisation hits that that time is no more - it can't be brought back - it's gone forever.
Only in my mind can I  re-create those memories, there's no tangible way to grab it back and haul it into my life today!  Try though I might, even when I concentrated my efforts on remembering the minutiae detail, the lead weight in my chest drags me back to face the harsh truth; no matter how good my memory is; that place and time is fading deeper into a sentence, a page, a chapter in my history.
That elusive past.
So today I must stay focused on the reality of the quality of my life. The peaks and troughs are an inevitable part of being human. But if the main thread running through my life is strong, with only a few frayed fibres on the edges then I have little to concern myself with.
But then there's the battle with my self indulgent head. It teases me with flashes of significant experiences in a less than illustrious life, and in that moment I'm giving too much attention to the frayed, tattered, irrelevant fibres and I need to return my attention to the core strength of the thread holding my life together.
My husband, my family, my friends; bearers of so much love and loyalty that I am truly cushioned and protected from the more negative aspects of the world.
I have so much to be grateful for!
Right now find one thing in your life to be grateful for and feel that gratitude in your body and mind!
"It is strange how we hold on to the pieces of the past while we wait for our futures." - Ally Condie

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