Practice gratitude. Transform the cynical to the appreciative. There are no more important words of advice for anyone who suffers with a chronic health condition.
When you are sick or in pain, it is really challenging to be thankful for anything in life. However, this is the time when people need to account for their blessings more than ever and realize that fostering gratitude is paramount to feeling better about everything in life.
Many clients will tell me, “What do I have to be grateful for? I am sick. I am in terrible pain. My life is hell”.
I completely understand their pain, since I have lived with it for 30 years and continue to be challenged by it to this day. I certainly do not lack empathy, nor do I think it is easy to embrace thankfulness when the mind is so burdened by worldly suffering. However, I also know how powerful gratitude can be towards making significant strides forward towards a better life. In fact, accepting the good aspects of life is ultra-important to balance the equation of pain and illness, and therefore return the person to a state of balanced health.
Focus on the negative, such as concentrating on the pain itself, as well as its many collateral effects, will only create cynicism, sadness, depression and increased neural activity to promote these negative thought and behavior patterns. Changing things up, by focusing on the positive aspects of life, will provide the opportunity to balance positive neuron connections that will undo the consequences of pain and provide satisfaction in life, despite the turmoil we must endure.
Once clients have worked with me for a couple of weeks, they understand that gratitude will help them and really wish to find it in their lives. This is easier said, than done. Illness and pain are ingrained and do not want to be undone by positive thought patterning. The process can be a real obstacle to overcome and it is no surprise that some clients immediately sense the difficulty of truly and sincerely feeling thankful.
So how then do people who are suffering find gratitude? The key to the success of this endeavor is, of course, objectivity.
Objectivity is a key tenet of my coaching programs. I speak of it often and refer back to it as an answer to many of life’s riddles. Objectivity has helped me to find great joy in my life, despite the truly severe hurdles that I have faced. Objectivity also provides an ongoing source of self-sufficiency to achieve all manner of goals once it can be found, captured and integrated into a person’s belief system.
I work with clients to look at their lives from a third person perspective. This is a great start to finding objectivity. I ask them to describe their lives and all the facets contained therein as if they were documenting a news story as a professional journalist.
“Just the facts; No editorial content please”.
To make this really easy, I start with allowing them to focus on the negative. Clients will go one and on about all the suffering they see and the tribulations they endure. Then, I switch things up and inquire about the positives of life. I remind them to be objective and observe from a distance, just like a good reporter.
It does not take long for clients to see that they do have so much good in their lives. They can see the family, friends, health blessings and other factors that do objectively give them reason to embrace some degree of positivity immediately. Now, it is my job to guide them to develop the worth of these positive aspects of life and reinforce just how meaningful these blessings are.
Give me 2 weeks and the most thankless clients now see that life can always be worse. No matter how bad they thought they had things in life, they now see how wonderful many facets of their world truly are. This paradigm shift opens new doors in the mind, allowing clients to move steadily forward in the coaching process, towards success in all their objectives.
I find the entire process to be incredibly fulfilling, both professionally and personally. Clients tell me that acceptance of gratitude is one of their greatest achievements and they prove it by thanking me outright for showing them the way. They are thankful for having learned yet another tool that can change life from one of suffering to one of wonder, joy and gratitude.
