Gratitude in the face of calamity

Has 2020 been challenging for anyone else on the gratitude front?

This week especially, when we’re “supposed” to be thankful but our Thanksgiving traditions are being torn to pieces. In our family, my mom always hosts a beautiful Thanksgiving dinner with friends and family. She also invites anyone in the community who she’s learned doesn’t have a place to go that week. (Yup: feeding people who need a little extra love is apparently hereditary!) But this year, she’s having to break with a 2-decade tradition. It’s happening everywhere: families around the country are weighing the risks and benefits of travel, the joy of seeing loved ones against the danger it could bring. And these are just quarantine related disappointments – it doesn’t even begin to dive into the suffering millions of Americans are feeling for other pandemic related losses. How can we feel gratitude when our world is turning upside down?

While it may not be easy, my own experience tells me it’s absolutely possible. Moreover, with challenge after challenge being thrown at us this year I believe it’s even more important to able to embrace gratitude. What’s the alternative? A bleak spiral of negativity and despondence? No thank you! 

Last Thanksgiving I wrote about some practices that helped me build a habit of gratitude. Having those practices already in place has made it easier to find grace and goodness in the face of everything happening this year. What’s even cooler is that a year later, I’m still doing them! I still write down what I’m grateful for every single morning. Our family still does “agradecimientos” at dinner every night. Even Moseah, at 20 months, will say “I grateful” followed by an inexplicable string of toddler words while pointing to the different foods on his plate. (It’s the cutest thing.) But it’s been a journey: it’s not like I sat down with a gratitude journal one day and BOOM: I was suddenly thankful in the face of calamity.

 And as I reflected this week I realized that my journey actually started years ago; much earlier than I had thought when I wrote last year’s post. I’m sharing my reflections in the chance that it might help other mamas find some grace and gratitude this week, even in the face of some tough times.

This started with learning to ask the question “what’s good about this situation that I’m not seeing?”Just this lesson alone probably took about a year, because for the longest time I didn’t want to ask the question. I was so used to getting upset and frustrated that when I went to my husband to complain, I didn’t want solutions. I didn’t want to see the good. I wanted to vent, and I wanted someone to listen and to tell me I was right. Well, I married the wrong guy for that! I married someone who’s singularly passionate about (and good at) growing as a person, and so I learned how to grow, too. It may be the most valuable skill I’ve ever learned. So, over time, I learned to replace my frustration with a kind of Zen analysis – what’s good about this situation that I’m not seeing? When I ask myself this question, a whole world opens up. 

What does this question look like in the context of this week? Before I would have said “this is so unfair, when will COVID end? We don’t get any of our family traditions!” Now instead I asked myself, what’s good about this situation that I’m not seeing? Well, my husband and I can zoom with all our families. That’s so much easier than having to juggle the tension of who gets to see the grandkids, and do we take turns between parents, and how many houses can we make it to in one day even if they’re spread out across the East Coast. Zoom calls actually sound a lot less stressful! And I get to try a whole slew of new Thanksgiving recipes that I’m excited about, because I have more time to cook with Cimorene now that we’re not driving all around.

In January I learned a more energetic variation on this question. Just before the pandemic hit, I read The Art of Possibility by the conductor of the Boston Philharmonic, Ben Zander, and his wife. When Zander’s music students make a mistake in their playing, he instructs them to throw up their hands and yell “how fascinating!!” instead of getting frustrated. I can’t tell you how many times this year I’ve thrown up my hands, forced myself to smile, and yelled, “how fascinating!”. No grocery delivery available? How fascinating! Let’s get creative in the cupboard and make up new recipes. A friend tests positive for COVID? How fascinating! How can we best support their family and show them love in the coming weeks? We can’t see our family in person? How fascinating! Let’s do story time on Facetime and make biscuits on zoom with my mom. I’m not saying I miraculously feel happy about whatever it is that’s happened – quite the opposite. But doing this causes a complete shift in my perspective, and suddenly it’s easier for me to see possibility in place of despair. And once I’m open to possibility, really, really interesting things happen. For example…

The more I reflected this week, the more I realized that all of these tools are also likely why Lasagna Love got started. Instead of being stressed or anxious at the beginning of lockdown, I was in the habit of thinking “what’s good about this situation that I’m not seeing?”. Well, we had groceries. We had childcare. Instead of panicking that our business was at a standstill, I exclaimed “how fascinating!” This meant I’d have a lot of free time! What could I do with everything I had to make it easier for those who were struggling? Cook food, spread kindness. 

Even with these tools, changing habits was hard – especially since my old habits had been ingrained for so long. I grew up with one parent very calm in the face of anything, and the other swearing at the drop of a screw. My dad would get so frustrated when he lost at cards that I used to let him win just to avoid the outburst. (Sorry, dad!) So, my habit of getting super frustrated at even small challenges isn’t new – it was modeled, then adopted, then entrenched. But what took 30 years to develop, in comparison, has only taken a few years to turn around. And the impact has been incredible. I’m happier. I’m a better mom. My relationship is stronger. My kids are learning skills in their first few years that it took me decades to learn. So: maybe this week, if you’re having a hard time feeling thankful, start small. Trying asking yourself what’s good that you’re not seeing, or throw your hands up and exclaim “how fascinating!”. See where it takes you, you never know!