Gratitude

Gratitude

Living with addiction and mental health disorders is a difficult way to walk through life, however, there are resources that I have found that have made this journey more bearable.  In my life, I have a therapist I have worked with for thirteen years who I respect, a new psychiatrist that is very engaged in my mental health recovery, and various support groups that I am starting to plug into.  Regardless of my incredible support system, I still deal with bouts of depression, suicidal ideation, and manic episodes which create chaos for everyone around me that I love and respect.  One of the ways I am finding that I can help myself achieve greater balance and peace is by practicing gratitude.

There is no shortage of articles, blog posts, books, podcasts, and seminars about living a life full of gratitude, but for me, I am finding that I must start practicing this regularly or the consequences can be rough on me and the people around me who love and care for me.

So what does gratitude mean to me today?

• I am grateful to Amanda for her unwavering love and support during these tough times.
• I am grateful for the wonderful day I had with Amanda and Pepper hiking in Amicalola Falls.  We were able to spend time together out on the trail, the weather was beautiful, and we had some good important conversations.
• I am grateful for my parents who have helped us during this time by being supportive of my health and understanding the toll it takes on Amanda.
• I am grateful for the experiences I had as a younger Chris, the places I have traveled to, and the memories and friends that I have made over the years.
• I am grateful for my support system, my therapist, my psychiatrist, and some of the newer medical professionals that have helped me with physical therapy and recovery from my car accident and shoulder surgery.
• I am grateful for my new Mindfulness Coach, Siddarth, as the work that he and I are doing is very intense and he is giving me the tools to become more mindful in my daily activities.
• I am grateful to Priyanka for her commitment to our business and her hard work in making our business thrive.

These are only a few aspects of my gratitude list today, but by putting them down in writing and speaking them out loud, I am anchoring these thoughts into my emotions and I feel them more deeply and fully.  When I think about this list, I notice that they are very “me” centric, but I believe that is because I have been so isolated because of my depression and bipolarness.  Listing these gratitude items, however, makes me realize that I need to get out of my shell and interact with more people and expand my gratitude to others.  I am starting to do that with my support groups, but I also intend to do some group hikes with some of the hiking clubs in town and expand my network a bit further.   There are also people in my professional network that I can spend more time with which would also get me out of my shell and focus on something other than me.

I am grateful for the courage to put these raw feelings and thoughts onto paper.  It’s scary for me to be vulnerable and to think that someone may actually read these words and judge me negatively because of their own prejudices about mental health.  So today, I take a step forward in my mental health journey by sharing things I am grateful for and putting these words out there for the world to read.  

As I say on the trail, this [my mental health journey] will not be fast, but it will be worth it.