I want to address the idea of the holiday we just finished here in the United States called Thanksgiving.

I LOVE this holiday!  And not just because it revolves around food and eating (I am a real food lover and I imagine I will be posting more about food in posts to come…) but because of the idea of thanks and being thankful.

From my perspective as a professional hypnotherapist, I see the potency of the concept of gratitude and being thankful.  I often assign to my clients the homework of making a gratitude list (one of those tried and true aids to personal growth).  We all know we feel good when in a mindset of gratitude, and I think it is wonderful to have a national holiday devoted to it (no, the holiday is NOT devoted to turkey slaughter and football!)

But what happens when this holiday is over?  Maybe we went to visit family, or just took a few days to relax and stuff ourselves and just feel good for a while.  But now it’s back to work.  Back to being productive consumers.  Back to playing our roles.  The leftovers are all gone and it’s a full work week, so what’s there to be thankful about?

As I have gone back to my emails and messages I find a lot of disagreeable things there… stuff I’d rather not deal with.  Can I stay on vacation a few more days?  And then I  remembered something… one of the famous Mind Training Slogans of Atisha.  and it says “Be Grateful to Everyone.”

For those unfamiliar with these slogans, Atisha was an Eleventh Century Tibetan Buddhist teacher who devised a list of pithy sayings to help those who want to be on a path of awakening consciousness.  I don’t want to go too into the Buddhist concepts here, as I am not qualified to do so (for a reference on this I recommend starting with one of my favorite authors, Pema Chodron… her book “Start Where You Are” is where I first encountered this slogan and the book probably saved my life! and her smaller volume “Comfortable With Uncertainty” talks about it as well… read this stuff!  It is approachable and common-sense wisdom!).  I simply want to throw this idea out there to Be Grateful To EVERYONE!

I believe this is meant to address the idea that we are here on this earth to awaken our awareness, to be present, to learn about ourselves and our world… and every other person here (because they are here doing the same thing from another perspective!) can help us with this, whether we like it or not!

The Buddhists hold this idea of clinging to what is pleasurable and seeking to avoid what is distasteful as being at the root of all suffering, and this idea of being grateful to everyone speaks to that.

It’s a simple but powerful idea.  Everyone can help us wake up!  Everyone and every interaction gives us another opportunity to see mind in action, and specifically to see our OWN mind in action.

For myself, even in writing this I start to think “what if I get criticism about this?  what if people say mean things to me?  Oh no!!!  Danger!  Don’t write anything!  It’s safer to say nothing than to say anything…” and so I get to see how my own fear of people and their reactions can almost instantly provide an impulse to shut down, to isolate, to stifle my own creativity and expression and aliveness.

The same can be true for any interaction with anyone.  Concern over the responses of negative people can keep us from being ourselves, can keeps us locked up, alone, in the dark, in fear.
Yet, if I can hold a place of being grateful to everyone (and every circumstance, every situation) then the fear subsides a bit.

For those that know me or are familiar with hypnotherapy, we know that fear is the big enemy.

THE SUBCONSCIOUS IS ALL ABOUT FEAR!
This is because our subconscious mind is that part of our minds that is always looking to protect us, to keep us safe.  That’s why it’s subconscious… the conscious mind basically can’t be trusted (from a subconscious perspective) and is too slow and cumbersome to really safeguard us from any possible danger or hurt, so we develop this portion of mind that remembers everything and is always alert.. always comparing the present against a huge database of memories and beliefs to see if we’re safe.

So that being the case… think about it a moment… have there ever been people in your life you just wished never existed?  People who pushed your buttons?  People who “made you SO mad!”  People who “broke your heart?”  (I put some of these phrases in quotes because of the way certain ideas tend to express themselves… the messages contained in the words are dangerous to the mind, but we seldom pay attention to that… more on that another time…)
But what about these people?  Why do we have to have these situations?  A good friend of mine once pointed out, on commenting how things seem to always have a tendency to go wrong and fall into fear and chaos, that “It’s always PEOPLE, man!”  It so often seems to be people who screw things up, who disrupt our balance, our equanimity, our bliss.

Why?

Well, like I said, because they are here for the same reason we are… to awaken.  And they are playing the same games we do.  We are all so damned precious!  It’s my way or the highway!  If you don’t agree with me, you’re an idiot!

This is why we tend to gravitate toward the people who mesh well with our belief systems and our world view.  In this country we have seen this situation become very extreme in our last election.  Family members stopped speaking to one another if they were for the other political party!  Our culture has really evolved into a strong “us versus them” mentality (much to our detriment it seems!)

Here’s where this slogan of Atisha comes in.  Be Grateful to EVERYONE.
Because they are showing you your own mind.
We are all grateful for our friends, our loved ones, those special people in our lives.
But what about that awful ex-husband?  That intractable colleague?  That bombastic boss?  That horrific politician?  That guy up the street who lets his dogs crap on my lawn?

Thing is, we never GROW in our COMFORT ZONE… do we?  When everything is going our way, do we ask questions?  Do we question ourselves and our motivations and or ideas?  Do we try to see through the dialog in our own minds when that dialog is all happy and nice?  Not so much.

So be grateful to those people who get your goat!  Those awful people who don’t even SEE what they’re doing!  Those heartless so-and-sos who seem so unavoidable in our lives.
They are our teachers.  They are showing us another place where we can learn to let go if we can get clear on our subconscious responses.  Do we really need to react the way we do?  Does it protect us somehow?  Is there really a threat? (and sometimes maybe there is… but if so, do we respond best out of anger, or out of calm?)

Every single person who interacts with you, just be the act of their doing so, regardless of the nature of the interaction, is reinforcing to you that you are not alone, that we are all in this together.  No matter what you think of another person… to someone else, you ARE the other person!  Think about that!  And be grateful that in this case, you get to be YOU and not the other.  You always get to choose.

So… I offer this proposition.  Choose gratitude.  For everyone.  Let this thought trickle in over the next few days and weeks.  Just play with it… see what you get.  And always remember, YOU are part of everyone… so be gentle with yourself as you work with this thought.