Gratitude: Not Just for Thanksgiving

It might be obvious to state that Thanksgiving week could be the perfect time to launch a gratitude practice. The holiday stress can be greatly reduced by remembering all that we are grateful for in our lives. But research and plenty of anocdotal evidence has indicated that a daily practice of not only taking note of those gifts we have been given but also writing them down in a journal can produce remarkable rewards.

The good news is that anyone who lives in the Santa Barbara area by definition always has the fact of dwelling in paradise in their back pocket to list as item number 1 when all else fails. I’ve often started there when jotting down the things I’m grateful for to begin the day or at challenging moments.

For a period of time back in 2016, there was a Gratitude Circles Meet Up in town that largely consisted of a focused gratitude meditation comprising deep breathing and stretching, followed by participants either sitting or lying on the floor in a circle, each in turn speaking a single present-time experience of gratitude. It’s been dormant since 2016 (a revival might be a great idea; hint, hint), but there are plenty of other resources available elsewhere. Celebrated Santa Barbara author Jack Canfield co-wrote Gratitude: A Daily Journal – Honor and Appreciate the Abundance in Your Life more than 10 years ago, explaining how gratitude and acknowledgment are essential components in creating and attracting what you want in your life. Two Book is a year-long, two-part journal that provides a simple framework for a personal expressions of gratitude and acknowledgment.

Materials can also be found online, of course, or you can just do what one of my Family Camp colleagues and many others have done for more than a year: write a paragraph noting a single gratitude and post it on Facebook every day. She’s reported that the experience has been profound. Here’s mine for today: I’m grateful for being able to write this column every week, and by extension be exposed to all sorts of spiritual and self-growth practices I might otherwise not have noticed.

Grief, Praise, and Gratitude

Maybe this is all arising in me via the law of synchronicity. Last month, I heard the veteran Montecito singer-songwriter Glen Phillips perform “Grief and Praise” during one of his periodic solo shows at SOhO. Phillips says the title from the song – which was the centerpiece of his 2016 album Swallowed By The New, written in the aftermath of the breakup of his longtime marriage – came from a Martin Prechtel talk that describes grief and praise as being mirrored aspects of love in the face of inevitable loss. Praise is grieving what we love and will lose, grief is praising what we love and have lost.

Two weeks later, Santa Barbara Community Gathering, the it-takes-a-village council circle monthly meeting of friends and families that has gone on for more than 19 years, opened the final scheduled gathering in its current format by having all 30 of us joining in singing “Grief and Praise,” diving deep into our own shared experiences over the years and in that very moment. It was hard to hold back the tears.

Then I came home to open up an email from Alexis Slutzky about the upcoming Women’s Grief and Gratitude Retreat at Arroyo Hondo Preserve. The wilderness guide, mentor, community builder, council trainer, and counselor – who offered shorter grief rituals at Yoga Soup and elsewhere during and after last winter’s fire and mudslide – co-facilitates with Sharon Tollefson the weekend retreat where women can explore grief and gratitude in communion with one another and the land. The two-day camping retreat will include sharing in circle, engaging in ritual, quiet time on the land, dancing, singing, and whatever else arises.

The December 8-9 event follows a year of Slutzky offering day-long grief rituals, with the idea that “More time together would support a sense of safety, deepening trust, and community, as well as our soul’s capacity to release and receive,” she writes. “The intention of this retreat is to be with and metabolize our personal and collective grief, as well as strengthen our practices of opening to gratitude, connection, joy, and wonder.” This weekend is offered on a sliding scale of $225 to $375. No one will be turned away due to financial constraints, as work-trade and other options are available. Register by this Sunday, November 25. Visit www.wildbelonging.com/events/2018/12/8/womens-grief-and-gratitude-retreat. (Men can attend the upcoming regular one-day Community Grief Ritual, slated for Sunday, March 31, 2019.)

Sensitivity Training 

Marilyn O’Malley has added an extra tag-line to the workshop she’s leading next Thursday, November 29, at the Impact Hub Downtown: “How to Thrive as a Sensitive in an Insensitive World… and During the Holidays.” The life coach and Highly Sensitive Person expert will conduct the interactive workshop partially as a session to handle questions and challenges about being highly sensitive, covering such topics as self-care and energy tools, knowing what can be “Kryptonite to Sensitives” or, conversely, a superpower, and how to manage the holidays. Admission is $20. Sign up for the 6 to 8 pm event through the Impact Hub Chapala Street. O’Malley also offers a free sensitive-person test on her website at www.marilynomalley.com/are-you-highly-sensitive, where you can find more resources. 

MeetUp Roundup: Mindful Eating

You may gorge yourself at Thanksgiving. But if that happens more than once a year – and more often than you’d like at all – perhaps this new MeetUp might help. Mindful Eating Santa Barbara, which had its first gathering last month, is based on the premise presented in Eat Here Now, the lovely book published last year by Britta Gudmunson (a.k.a. Britta GreenViolet), a life coach and teacher at Yoga Soup who also runs the InCourage Chorus among other mindful endeavors. The concept is to maintain a conscious mindful attitude and awareness of food choices and of the eating process itself, with an emphasis placed on natural, healthy food items and on a relaxed mindful dining enjoyment of them.

As such, the MeetUp gets together at local restaurants and healthy food establishments where people can chat and engage in the practice of Mindful Eating among a group of mindful friends. The next one is schedule for 6 pm on Wednesday, November 28, at Savoy Cafe and Deli, 24 West Figueroa Street. A Mindful Eating guidelines handout will be available. Details and optional RSVP at www.meetup.com/MindfulEatingSB. Bon appetit!