Gratitude for the hard stuff

Gratitude has been on my mind, particularly gratitude for the hard stuff. It's easy to stop in the midst of a beautiful landscape and feel awe. It's a lot harder to give thanks for things that are painful, or that dash our plans against the rocks, or that knock us off our center.

One of the great gifts of shamanism in my life is looking for the teaching in any situation. I don't mean from a place of magical thinking, where everything that happens carries some secret message. I mean thinking of life as a perpetual teaching, where every situation contains the potential for learning and growth. Shamanism certainly isn't the only avenue to this mindset, but it's what brought me here. I still get frustrated, I still dig in my heals and ball up my fists and shout "no" in my mind. But after I give myself space for feelings, I can take a breath and ask where the opportunity lies.

This is gratitude for the hard stuff. When it's hard to find the teaching myself, I ask my spirits about it. I look for where I can say "thank you." Sometimes life is really hard. Sometimes gratitude is "thank you for this hard thing, that took me out of the path of something even harder." Sometimes it's "thank you for giving me the strength to get through this." Sometimes it's "thank you for being here with me." Shamanism isn't an easy path, nor is life. We can still take responsibility for how we work with the hard things.

Are there opportunities for gratitude in your life that you aren't seeing?