Welcome to the FIFTH gift in Resiliency Workshop

No. 5.  Gratitude of Redwoods
Allow gratitude to turn what you have into enough.

Resiliency grows from the superpower of gratitude. 

​When the ancients and the moderns agree, I know it's true. Even the neuroscientists are on board. Gratitude changes our brain chemistry, in the moment. This is true even when we simply look for something for which to be grateful.  The funny thing is, we don't even need to FIND it... just the looking is good enough.

What do you have to lose?

Stress? Depression? Anxiety? Worry? In other words, I have nothing interesting or useful to lose when I fill up with gratitude.  So try it; be grateful now.  See if this small, sweet step does not make you... just happier.  That's enough.

1.

Video: What you can expect

Hello again,

I choose better each day by thinking like a redwood – by growing my roots & my connections. I leverage gratitude as a tool of compassion and 'enoughness'. 

Gratitude offers me the greater perspective of a wider view.

How this is going for you?  Drop me a line and me know at [email protected]

​In gratitude,

Rev. EM


Gratitude is one of your basic superpowers.

I use it daily to turn what I have, into enough.

It's odd, really because I do HAVE so much: a roof over me, good food and work that I was made to do.   My life has not been all roses, but I have a rose garden and no one is shooting at me...

Use Gratitude. I have enough and yet...  I also have these stories in me, that tell me that I must DO MORE to be enough.  I have happily outgrown most of my stories of not-enoughness, but they are still within and talk to me.

These negative stories sap us. They are both deep as well as reinforced by media & modern mores of measuring our value by our stuff, or popularity, or notions of "how it should be".

Gratitude of Redwoods Intro
Many little videos like it will guide you
​through the eight steps to resilience. 
​SWEET SMALL STEPS are powerful... no matter what stressors you find yourself within. Incrementally, you will return to your LOVELY ENOUGHNESS at center –your center...and that, my friend, makes it a better day

2.

Listen to the Audio of the chapter...

Gift No. 5 - Gratitude of Redwoods
Allow gratitude to turn what you have into enough.

3.

Process:​ Gratitude Breath & Lists

Each evening before going to sleep:
​ 
1. Take three breaths of gratitude (see the micro-video below)

2. Write down 3 things you are grateful for that day.

Do this each day & Journal about it 

PDF pages are provided below or write in the journal of your choice.

Gratitude has the power to change your world, as it did me.
Gratitude Process
This micro-video will help you through the process...with some tips on GRATITUDE breaths & making a gratitude list every evening.

4.

Questions to write about ...because your experience matters.

Write in a journal you already have or make this DIY resiliency journal  to consider your experiences more thoroughly.

You (probably) have everything you need to make it:
​
  •  A printer,
  •  A 3 hole punch &
  •  A loose leaf binder
Click Icon above to download the journal pages for this gift.
  1. Who or what is your support system?  What interconnections do you have that (and who) can help you when you feel depleted?

  2. Do you ask for help? If so, how?  If not, why not?

  3. What does it mean for you: gratitude turns what you have into enough.

  4. What are the kinds of things you experience when you feel you are enough? 
    ​

5.

Gratitude of Redwoods - GIFT No. 5
Read Along with the audio
ALLOW GRATITUDE to turn what we have into enough.

My mother seemed to always be out of breath and in a hurry. My diva taught me to practice brinksmanship— not meditation. She was more about self-preservation than self- compassion.
​
THE MOST IMPORTANT QUESTION TO ASK WHEN YOU FEEL DOWN 
​Like fire, gratitude is a tool. It improves your brain chemistry, which you need to stay fit for caregiving. You know what the antidepressant Wellbutrin does? Boosts the neurotransmitter dopamine. So does gratitude. Know what Prozac does? Boosts the neurotransmitter serotonin. So does gratitude. Gratitude fights
anxiety and fear.

JUST ASKING THE QUESTION, ‘WHAT AM I GRATEFUL FOR?' DOES IT. Even on the day caregiving punches you in the belly and it feels like there’s nothing for which to be grateful. No worries. Doesn’t matter. You don’t have to find anything. It’s the search that counts. It’s about remembering to look in the first place.

THE COMMUNITIES OF REDWOODS AGREE. GRATITUDE IS A superpower.

Gratitude of Redwoods

Picture

WHAT IS ENOUGH TO A REDWOOD TREE? 
​REDWOODS ARE GIANTS AND appear to be independent—doing it all on their own. Their true strength is dirtier and deeper. Their comparatively shallow root system extends outward to others, forming a network of redwoods that share resources. Since the Jurassic era, they have been weathering fire, drought, floods, and storms as an interconnected community. How is it possible they share widely, and yet are fed more...and better?

IN THE MUD OF CAREGIVING OR LIFE, BELOW GROUND FOREST ecology is relevant. New studies show the interconnections of organisms living in the soil help trees acquire nutrients and water. The exchange of carbon and nitrogen goes back and forth between individual trees — even, in some cases, trees of different species.

THEY MAY HAVE LESS TO SHOW FOR IT ABOVE GROUND, BUT THE root systems of pre-plow prairies were even more robust. Their roots were so interconnected that they could be seen as one plant across thousands of native grassland miles. These interconnected underground systems were not about appearance, but resilience and regeneration.

THESE ARE FUNGAL PHONE NETWORKS OF UNDERGROUND communication--with their ancestors and their progeny. They are wildly connected in mystery and miracle. So are we.
GRATITUDE IS A SUPERPOWER FOR WHEREVER (AND WHEN-EVER) you are.

You decide whether the glass is half-empty or half-full (but drink it with close friends). Laugh until you Cackle (Gift No. 17 in my Field Guide to Caregiving book).

ALLOW GRATITUDE TO TURN WHAT YOU HAVE INTO ENOUGH.

​                                                                             • • • 
Trusting the Invisible - a SOUND MEDITATION

Grow better roots & connections... with breath & gratitude


Gratitude changes our brain chemistry, breath and meditation does too. Richard Rohr, a Franciscan scholar and author, describes this in the second step in AA - the awakening to the reality of a Power higher than ourselves, as very much like the idea of Gratitude Breathing (which is itself an adapted technique from the HeartMath folks.) To align in coherence with our head, our heart and our gut in such a way as to unify self & Self. These are truisms, which are still true, even when described from different points of view and philosophical frameworks. Redwoods would frame it as, branches, trunk and roots...

 What do you trust? It's related to the mechanics of gratitude. What you can see with your own eyes?  Can you open up enough to trust the invisible?
                                                                   • • •


"To finally surrender ourselves to healing, we have to have three spaces opened up within us – and all at the same time: our opinionated head, our closed down heart, and our defensive and defended body....When all three inner spaces are open and listening together we can always be present. To be present is to know what you need to know in the moment.  To be present to something is to allow the moment, the person, the idea, or the situation to change you....

When all of you is present, the banquet will begin."
​
             - Richard Rohr, Breathing Underwater - Spirituality of the Twelve Steps
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We are all part of the 'fungal phone network'. Make a connection.

​Best blessings,
 
Rev. EM