Its not hard to feel grateful when life is on the upswing. The challenge to choose gratitude in the face of pain, injury, disappointment, and tragedy is a true test to one's inner rudder. When life steers you down and you obstinately choose to continue to look up; well, THAT, my friends, is a sign of the inner practice of Gratitude manifesting itself in its truest sense and at its greatest hour. I can attest that in the last 48 hours I have experienced a small measure of this test myself. As a member of Lucent Dossier Experience, an internationally known cirque troupe based in Los Angeles, I had been preparing for our recent show at the Palace Theatre all month. Fast forward to the dress rehearsal the night before and, because even the best plans can not plan for everything, I slipped on an oil spill onstage and severely sprained my right ankle. With the love of family, plenty of R.I.C.E. and a heavy dose of prayer mixed with ibprofin, I was able to perform the following night. But despite my resolution to continue to defy the physical limitations of a sprained right ankle, another physical injury beset me in the middle of the same show the following night. If you can imagine, it was the second to last number in the last night of the show and, while being onstage, with the lights shining, the audience mesmerized, the music pounding, the other dancers throwing down their souls with fervor all around me, my own heart racing with the pulsing frequency of the passion that only develops through the fusion of multiple souls on a rollarcoaster of shared humanity...it was in the middle of one of these final magical moments that I felt a gripping pain envelop my left leg and, were it not for the power of the love of my family onstage and off of it, along with a fierce pride in finishing any given task, I would have crumpled on stage that very second. Instead of assuming that logical response I quickly tried to assess whether or not I had torn my achilles tendon, decided I hadn't, determined that quitting at the moment was not an option on the table, gritted my teeth into an even wider smile, and forced myself to finish the dance number. As soon as I was off the stage and safely in the wings I fell to the ground....hours later I made it to my couch and have been there for the last two days (and am still there now as I write this).
Now I've shared with you my sob story, not because I'm looking for more sympathy but because it is my own response to my own injury by which I have been fascinated. The night of the injury I was in complete denial. I didn't want to accept that I'd injured myself even more intensely then I had two nights previously, so I joked about it, did not follow R.I.C.E protocal, and continued to hobble around the afterparty with my friends when I should have been laying down at home. The next morning, as I realized my true state, I was struck with frustration and anger at my situation, which quickly emerged as an awful irritated demeanor of which my sweet Cuban felt the brunt. The irritated frustration then melted into a pathetic pity party of tears and sadness as the realization sunk in that my daily goals of world domination would have to be pushed back to the following week or weeks or possibly even month ahead. And then sadness became resigned acceptance, as I determined that crying wouldn't solve anything and that the only thing left to do was to pro-actively speed along my recovery with mindful attention, patience, and a positive outlook. I turned down a gig, canceled clients, gathered every balm, and bandage, and ice pack i could gather, and settled in for a long engagement on the couch for an extended stay.
I'm about to venture out today but this is the whole point of this whole blog entry.....Gratitude and a focus on the positive assessment of the situation are key ingredients to any recovery and although I went through my own series of negative emotions and responses, I wound up back at gratitude because I've been practicing it long enough that any other response no longer fits well for very long. Negative thinking is like a dress that is two sizes too small and is too tight, too limiting, too restrictive. Negative thinking terminates the opportunities to experience community, love within and beyond yourself, and it imprisons true potentials from reaching in or out of your own spirit and soul. It was perfectly normal and natural to feel anger and sadness to the physical pain I was enduring but, because living in a mindset of gratitude has become a daily practice, I was not, and am not, able to stay negative for long before gratitude reaches back out and pulls me back up into a place of greater perspective and vision. The idea that our belief systems will control our destinies is very eloquently and concisely voiced in one of the movies I watched during my couch stay. In The Iron Lady, based on the stalwart life of Margaret Thatcher, the stubborn determined grit of Thatcher relays a philosophy about the importance of thinking over feeling. She conveys that what we think becomes the words we speak. The words we speak become the actions we do. The actions we do become the constitution of our character. And our character ultimately creates our individual and collective destiny.
So well spoken....choose to believe in the greater picture and the greater picture will one day save you from yourself. For me that greater picture is Love. And Love never fails. Despite injury or pain or chaos Love always comes through with a greater plan. There are people all around me, and all around you, who are presently in the throws of heartaches and rough roads. They may not tell you how broken they are but if you listen long enough they will show you. Perhaps your ability to live within the greater vision and the broader strokes of a life of Gratitude will woo them towards daring to lift their heads up as well. There's a universe above us, what lies below only goes so far. It is a fact that life will throw you down but when it does, my friends, even if it takes a minute to get your bearings, don't get stuck mulling at the mess you are in. Take a second, even take a minute, but then dare to look up. You will be amazed at quickly you then rise.
