Gratitude can eliminate fear, anxiety, uncertainty and hatred. With these challenging times, appreciating the people in our lives and showing gratitude towards others, may just be the key to healing our planet. This along with demonstrating kindness towards ourselves, towards others and towards this planet, could energetically change the direction this earth seems to be heading.
We don’t know why the COVID virus invaded our lives. We do know that our lives have changed and that we need to learn better skills to handle ourselves and our relationships. This seems obvious when any of us read or hear the news. If the Corona Virus is here to teach us all something, maybe the best place to start is by looking in the mirror. By this I mean to take the time to reflect on people and things we took for granted prior to to the virus infection.
Starting with giving ourselves credit for what we accomplish each day and for initiating acts of kindness towards others. And then delving more deeply into character traits that we may feel could use some improvement. This is a time to start healthier habits, to extend mediation practices and to find our real purpose for being here on planet earth today. And even the smallest act of kindness towards ourselves and others, raises the vibrational level around us.
There do not seem to be many guarantees about the future of the world. But if we look deeply, we see grocery clerks risking their lives to bring us food, in the stores. We see doctors, nurses, fireman and health care workers risking their lives to save others. We see people sacrificing their “normal” way of life to protect the ones they love.
These are just some of the people for which we can show gratitude and kindness. As a therapist, I am seeing so many people struggling to maintain their families, their relationships, their income and any sense of joy and hope. Yet, beyond that, I see neighbors greeting each other at a deeper and more obvious level of caring and concern. I do see people expressing gratitude to all that are continuing to work for the betterment of their fellow man.
I witness more kindness in daily interactions, along with family member calling and connecting more often and with genuine caring. All of this we can approach with a state of gratitude.
Uniting with one another for the common good seems more important than focusing on our differences. Let’s replace fear with understanding and replace judgement with acceptance and instead of criticizing, let’s find solutions. We can do this together.
- Janet Whitney, MA. LMFT.