For me, gratitude is an acquired taste. For many years, my negative thinking blocked my feelings of gratitude;  it actually took me years to pay attention to gratitude and its benefits. Thanksgiving is a good time to reflect on the journey to the benefits that can result from greater gratitude.

I didn’t come to a position of gratitude easily. From an early age, my personality seemed focused on what wasn’t right. My tendency was to expect more and to listen to my very deeply embedded “not enough” voice.

As a child, the only times I remember being “wowed” by Christmas presents was the year I got a new bike from my grandparents and the time my uncle gave us a big electric train set. Otherwise, I found Christmas boring and disappointing.

“Not enough”/ “I need more” thinking carves a path for negative thinking. As a grandparent, I now appreciate how I tended to focus on the few things my parents did that annoyed or hurt me and ignored the many positive habits they had that nurtured me and positively shaped me.  

Another manifestation of “not enough” showed up in my work life. A vivid recollection is when I was doing neighborhood work in Baltimore. I worked closely with a key staff person at one of the major foundations there. We had just been successful in getting the city government to make a major funding commitment to a “healthy neighborhoods” project.

We were in the foundation’s office talking about the commitment.  I made a perfunctory congratulations on the progress and immediately launched into what was missing in the City’s commitment. The foundation officer stopped, looked at me with disdain and said “Tom, it’s never good enough for you, is it?” At the time, I rationalized it was her problem somehow. I wasn’t ready to see how negative thinking was taking over my life and damaging relationships.

It wasn’t until I became involved with the Twelve Steps that I was even aware of how my first thoughts often were negative, driven by my “not enough” voice.  Practicing the Twelve Steps gave me a completely different approach to changing habits like this one. I was instructed very clearly that I could not use my will to stop negative thinking. Nor would knowledge and understanding of why I responded negatively give me the ability to change.

Instead, I was encouraged to accept that “not enough” thinking was deeply embedded in me. The cause does not matter. I read once that half the world saw the glass as half full and the rest of the world as half empty. I found that comforting, whether true or not. In my experience, there are indeed some people who are always positive no matter what. And there are folks like me who tend to the negative. And if you tend to the negative, the path to change isn’t always clear.

Two practices have helped me see the good and abundance in my life and be less inclined to “not enough”. The first is faith in a loving Divine Spirit that loves me and wants good for me. The Twelve Steps encouraged me to develop this relationship with a Higher Power and to make a priority deepening my relationship with this Power. I do that through prayer and meditation and paying attention to gratitude.

My gratitude list grows and changes as I age. This Thanksgiving I am grateful for:

• My growing appreciation of the gift of loving relationships and the desire to nurture them.
• More clarity about how staying overly busy, even on projects that bring good to the world, is for me a block to closeness with the God I believe in, with Geraldine and with the people I love. 
• My health and economic security that allow me to enjoy retirement and increasingly learn what it means to be present and savor each moment.
• Being alive at a time when the world is reexamining the limitations and harm done by a dominant white culture and having so many opportunities to learn the truth about our country’s history and what it means to be anti-racist.
• The gift of having been introduced to the Twelve Step way of life over forty years ago and continuing to grow spiritually and be more at peace and joyful as a result.
• The willingness and courage to offer my talents in writing and organizing to the God I believe in and to use those talents as directed. 

 Listening to my negative “not enough” voice is limiting in so many ways. Gratitude for me has cleared a path to the freedom to learn how to love more deeply.  In turn, that leads to a very sweet life. Happy Thanksgiving!