How gratitude saves me

As Thanksgiving approaches, I have given a lot of thought to the idea of gratitude, how much it means to me, and how much it has helped, and continues to help me.

One thing that I have learned in the last few years, after the loss of a child and the grief that accompanies it, is that there is much more to what is going on in my life than I can comprehend.  Most things have a much bigger picture than the tiny lens in my eyes can capture.  I have experienced overwhelming awe, incredible compassion, intense longing, and a new perspective and I am a different person because of it. 

The experience of awe has been shown to be good for us.  Every time I experience the birth of a child, I am overwhelmed with awe at the miracle of life, that my husband and I managed to produce and grow a living human being, that my body knows what to do to grow it, nurture it, and then how to give birth.  There was also a great sense of awe as I saw how many miracles take place on a daily basis in the NICU, from amazing doctors and nurses, to advances in medical technology that allow babies born prematurely to finish developing outside of the womb.  Seeing how much technology and watchcare was required instilled a deeper sense of awe that my body knows how to take care of a life even better than all these machines and technology.  I was often completely overwhelmed while Gideon was there.  Though the miracle I wanted most was for Gideon to live (NOW), I know I'll get that miracle one day when he is resurrected, and I appreciate the miracle and the gift of resurrection now more than ever.

This entire article is worth a read, but the main point can be summed up well by this quote from Paul Piff (who I actually went to elementary school with). Researchers study Awe

Researchers believe awe is powerful because it takes us out of our own heads. “Awe minimizes our individual identity and attunes us to things bigger than ourselves,” says Paul Piff, assistant professor of psychology at the University of California, Irvine.  

The week before Gideon was born was actually a very fun, blissful week of celebrating for our family.  I had met with my doctor, who was concerned about what he saw in the ultrasound, and he had forwarded my care to the U of U hospital (since things weren't looking great), but my brother was getting married, and we were able to attend the wedding, enjoy the festivities, and return home safely.  Three days later, we met with the doctors at the new hospital, who ultrasounded me and then gave us the grim news that our baby was far worse off than we'd previously understood-- his only chance at life was to be delivered early, have his kidneys drained, and see if they were able to function at all.   They didn't even want to send me home, they decided to admit me immediately and monitor him, get steroids in his little body to give his lungs a growth spurt, and then deliver him as soon as those steroids had long enough to take effect.  When the doctors told us his condition might be lethal, we were floored and devastated. 

A week or two before this all happened, I had watched the movie Pollyanna with my children.  I set a goal within the first few hours of the hospital stay that I was going to be like Pollyanna, I was going to play "the glad game" and find ways to be positive about what was happening.  I'm a pretty optimistic person, and I like a challenge, and I figured if I could find a way to be positive in these moments, then I was well on my way to being a "champion level optimist".  I am pretty sure that is the hardest time I have ever had being an optimist, and I'll admit that there were moments when my resolve crumbled, and I broke down in tears of frustration, anger, and hopelessness.  Looking for reasons to be glad, though, helped me to step outside my bubble, to attune myself to a bigger perspective and a bigger picture, and it has saved my sanity over and over since then. 

A few things I was grateful for, and this is not even close to all of them.  1. My blood sugar results came back high, so I had gestational diabetes and had to be careful what I ate, but since he was going to be born so early, that meant I only had to be careful for a very short time.  2. It happened over the weekend of Pioneer Day, which was not fun to be in the hospital for, but at least my husband already had the day off, and many of my family members also had the day off, and were able to help our family out.  3. Most of my stretch marks form during the last few weeks of the pregnancy, which I hadn't gotten to yet, so no new stretch marks.  4.  My mom had been injured in a car accident earlier in the year, and had to take some time off of work because of her back and neck injuries.  Consequently, she was available to be with me and my kids during the experience.  5.  I have an awe inspiring network of friends and family who not only prayed for me, but DID stuff for our family.  Meals were brought in, my home was cleaned, people sent notes and letters of encouragement and support, a few generous people helped us pay for funeral expenses...I can't even.  Lots of crappy stuff happens in our world, but I know a lot of good people, and I feel so grateful for that.  6.  God.  I didn't want to put him last, because He is really the biggest and greatest of all the blessings, but I felt Him.  I had such feelings of love in my heart, and I knew in that week where we were unsure whether Gideon would live or die that whatever happens, God was indeed watching out for us, AND I am reassured by His promises that we will all get to be resurrected one day.  That hope makes whatever happens in this life, on this Earth OK. 

Maybe you think I'm nuts for trying to be grateful in a horrible situation.  There is good science behind why being grateful is good for us, here are two articles about it:  Newsweek: 5 scientifically proven benefits of gratitude    Neuroscience of why Gratitude makes us healthier

One great source of comfort for Scott and I was a talk given by an apostle from our church, Dieter F. Uchtdorf, entitled Grateful in Any Circumstances One of my favorite quotes from it is now up in my house: 

How much of life do we miss by waiting to see the rainbow, before thanking God that there is rain?  

I was looking for so many reasons to be grateful, and they WERE there, but I did have to look for them.  And I can see what that "rain" has done, in the hindsight of a few years.  I am better because of what I have experienced, even if it is painful.

I had a striking epiphany this week.  In Luke 17 you can read the short story of when Jesus heals 10 lepers, and only 1 comes back to thank him for it.  When this happens, Jesus talks to the one who came back and tells him (and only him, since he's the one who came back) "Arise, go thy way: thy faith hath made thee whole." He didn't have to tell the man this about his leprosy; it had been healed before the man came back to thank Jesus.  And the man could have gone on his way without coming back to talk to Jesus and getting Jesus' permission to do so.  Maybe... or even probably, Jesus was talking about something else that had been made whole by his faith, by his recognition of the Savior's hand in his life.  And I realized that perhaps it was like me.  Faith makes me whole.  Losing a child still hurts, it feels like there is a part of me that's missing, and I just have to carry on without it.  That pain, though, is made better by the knowledge that it is temporary, that we all get to be resurrected, and I am deeply grateful to the Lord for that plan, and for the influence I feel from Him in my life.  That faith, my faith, makes me whole again.  My gratitude to the Savior, in many ways, saves me from despair and grief, from being overwhelmed.  I am amazed at the love Jesus offers me.  That sense of awe and gratitude is a literal life saver for me, and it probably always will be.

U.S. Elections and the attempt to balance optimism, pessimism, and realism with humanity

So...I'm an optimist.  A realistic optimist, hopefully, and sometimes an unrealistic optimist, but an optimist nonetheless.  I'm not a fan when people "pop" my optimism bubble, because I like my happy world, where I believe that most people have more in common than they realize, and have the same exact basic needs.  This is a really useful visualization of what I'm talking about.   I know--you didn't think you were going to get a lesson in psychology or human development today, but here it is:

The gist is this: our base needs must be met before we can worry about the next "level" up.

It's a tricky thing, choosing someone to vote for.  Of course, we all want someone who will protect our basic needs, but also who will help protect the needs of others, especially those we care about.   And sometimes, during an election season (and after) people feel like their needs and wants are threatened.  And they're probably right, as some politicians have an agenda that may indeed knock someone down a level (or two or three) on the pyramid.

All elections aside: different people are at different places on the pyramid, and it's sometimes hard to understand those who are in a different place than we are.  If I'm starving to death because I have no home, no food, and I haven't slept in days, I'm probably not going to feel as bad about stealing a loaf of bread (thanks Jean Valjean), as if all my needs are met.  I just wouldn't be in the same position as a well-to-do person who never experienced hunger, who only philosophized about how stealing is wrong.  (And it is...I'm not saying one should steal, just that it's much harder to achieve a self actualization type mentality when your physical needs are suffering.)  Even if we were all in the "self actualization" area, where all our basic needs are met, we feel safe, secure, loved, and we're working on achieving things and being creative, we're going to go about those things in hugely different ways.  Welcome to being a human being.

When I vote, I look at the candidates, what they represent, what type of a world leader they will be, how they will help me and the other people in the country to achieve their needs, and then I vote for the person who I believe will be best for the country as a whole.  We have to remember, though, that our needs are not a "one size fits all" and so there are going to be many people who choose a different candidate based on different needs and ideals.  And that's AWESOME.  In the end, the idea behind a democracy is that the majority of people will have their needs/ideals met by choosing a leader that best matches their needs, wants, and ideals.

I think, especially in this USA 2016 election, that there really wasn't a great leader who could by a HUGE majority best meet the needs, wants, and ideals of most people.  This was a really tight election--Trump took the electoral college, and Hillary took the popular vote, which leaves a lot of people unhappy.  AND in many states, they both took less than 50% of the vote, with a few additional percent having voted 3rd party. So, less than half the people got who they voted for, and even if Hillary had won, there'd still be more than half of the population who would not have gotten the candidate they chose.  It's a rough year for satisfaction with the election, all around.

To be open/honest, I did not vote for either.  I felt that the USA could and should do better, and that our two party system had failed us by giving us people who didn't really represent our needs/wants.  The Democratic nominee should have been Bernie, if they wanted to represent the actual people.  And Donald Trump isn't actually a conservative person, so he's not very representative of the Republican party.  And as a "realistic optimist" I knew that there was no way my candidate could win, and a lot of people told me I was wasting my vote, and that I shouldn't vote at all, and that I HAD to choose between the two candidates, and (well...you probably know the rhetoric.  Perhaps you have heard it or rehearsed it to someone else.)  I knew I'd be disappointed, and I steeled myself for it, knowing that either way, I'd feel like the USA could have and should done better, a lot better, at providing candidates that "We the People" actually wanted.

I typically like to believe the best in people.  I have found that I usually care about any/every person I take the time to get to know, and I believe that would be true for the rest of the people on earth (with a few exceptions.)  I really think that most of us are good inside (again--with a few exceptions.)

So here's where my optimism bubble gets popped.  We seem to have forgotten that other people are still human beings.  In the aftermath of the election, many people are consumed with their feelings of disappointment, anger, and shock, and are giving in to name calling, judging, telling people they should be in Hell, making threats, losing friendships....We ARE ALL PEOPLE.  We all have a need for safety, and some people legitimately feel threatened by Donald Trump.  (This is maybe unrealistic optimism, but I'm optimistic that since we have a checks and balances in place with a legislative and judicial branch, it won't be THAT BAD, and he won't be able cram unconstitutional laws down everyone's throats.)  I can't blame people for feeling threatened or nervous about a Donald Trump presidency, because I am nervous about it too.  (I'm doing my all to keep this post NON-negative; I don't want to say ANYTHING negative about either of the major party candidates, because negativity has been spewed enough, and this post is about being a human being, not about being on one side or the other.)  I would have also been nervous if Hillary Clinton had won.  People who are nervous about a Trump presidency should not be mocked, belittled, or certainly not gloated over (especially since Hillary Clinton won the popular vote.)  People who voted for a third party should not be mocked, belittled, or certainly not gloated over (after all, they just wanted better choices, and there wasn't much to go on this year.)  People who voted for Trump should not be threatened, sworn at, and should not gloat.  They were trying to make a choice based on their own interpretation of needs/wants.

For some reason, social media has made this worse.  I have personally been belittled and made fun of by complete strangers on Facebook during this election cycle.  Would you talk to a person you were seeing in the grocery store, at the post office, or at the library the way you talk to someone on social media?  Probably not--because for some reason, talking to someone on a screen seems to be less real, we forget that the person on screen is a person.  They're just words on a screen to us, not someone who maybe has a family, who maybe lost a child, or maybe whose wife has cancer, or who just came out of the closet.  We are all REAL human beings.  So lets BE KIND and help each other feel safe.

A friend of mine (a beautiful, funny democratic friend of mine named Sarah Zarate-Braudaway Clark) shared this, and I wholeheartedly agree with what she observed.

1. I don't think hate won.2. For some, it was about hate and others, fear. 3. So much fear. 4. But for others, for people I love and respect, Trump was the best choice they felt they had for many reasons other than fear or hate. 5. Just as mine was in Hillary after supporting Bernie in the primary.6. Just as other friends did in voting third party. 7. I panicked tonight. I panicked and hurt and cried and almost lost myself in the fear that hate had won, that none of us are safe.8. I'm still afraid of what all of this means for so many and what it will mean over the next four years for our nation. 9. But I don't think hate won. 10. It was exposed, showing all of us the work that still needs to be done. 11. I don't think hate can win unless we let fear win and stop fighting for each other. 12. And I don't think fear will win, not for me, because I will not stop working for the society I believe we could have.

I'm also going to point out (as I think it merits explaining, and fits in with Maslow's hierarchy of needs) that she said she able to observe all this from a place of privilege--she is safe and not as threatened by a Donald Trump presidency as some other groups of people might be.

To assume that people voted for Donald Trump because they hate others and are bigots is an unfair assumption, and belittles their humanity.  To assume that people voted for Hillary Clinton because they love evil is an unfair assumption, and belittles their humanity.  Many people voted for the one of the two that they felt was less threatening.  Most of us, though, are trying to work hard for a future where there is peace and prosperity for all of us.

I believe in a better country, in a better world, where we're trying to help each other succeed, where we're helping each other feel safe, loved, successful, and free to pursue our creativity and morality in ways that don't step on the toes of other people's safety, success, and creativity/morality.  That's a super tricky balance to achieve, and we do a lot of teetering back and forth as a country, and as a world.  If you've ever been on a balance beam with another person, and tried to knock them off balance, you know that it's almost just as easy to throw your own balance off when knocking someone else down.  So don't try to throw the other person off balance--we're all in the middle of this tricky balancing act, lets communicate respectfully and work together.

President Obama said today: "We are not Democrats first, we are not Republicans first, we are Americans first", and I'd like to add "We are human beings first."  So let's act like it.   There is much work to be done to make the world a less hateful place, and saying hateful things to someone who doesn't agree with you is not going to help.  (And there is so much irony in saying hateful things or doing hateful things to someone who you believe is wrong for following a hateful person.)  I'm optimistic that we can do better and become better, and that we can fight dark with light, fight hate with love, and fill our nation (and the world) with respect and dignity.