Is it okay to be grateful in these difficult times?

An hour after I wrote about my deep gratitude for bird song and clean air, I felt tears down my cheeks.  What was I thinking?  How can I write about bird song and clean air when there is real human suffering going on.  People are sick.  Relatives are hoping their precious loved one will pull through.

I know what prompted this - a headline I fleetingly saw about care homes and coronavirus spreading.  My dad is a resident of a very pleasant and caring nursing home.  How can I enthuse about beautiful bird song when he could be at risk?  Shouldn't I just sit here on tenterhooks rather than enjoy the blossoming of spring?


And then I think of my father.  Right now, I know what he will be doing.  He will be sitting in his room after a filling lunch, looking at the landscaped gardens from his window.  His favourite moment will be spotting the green woodpecker who hops beneath his window on the grass.  Equally exciting is the waddling pair of mallards heading to the nearby river.  He enjoys watching birds as much as I do.  He wouldn't call it gratitude or "being in the moment" in his stoic manner.  But these are the happy moments of his day while being unable to move very far unaided.

The gift of gratitude (and bird watching) is that it brings us into the "present moment" of seeing what is okay and good right now.  It helps calm down the thoughts of uncertainty.  Today, he is safe and well and probably looking forward to his afternoon cup of coffee and chocolate biscuit.  It is not that he is unaware of coronavirus... days before lockdown he described the impact of a pandemic on the stock market!  But he also knows to enjoy these simple pleasures of life when you can't go far.

And just in case my father's wisdom at the age of 83 isn't enough, I found some research from Dr Robert Emmons, Professor at the University of California.  He would also encourage us right now to practise gratitude because:

"We have discovered that a person who experiences gratitude is able to cope more effectively with everyday stress, may show increased resilience and may recover more quickly from illness and benefit from greater physical health.”

Perhaps the concept of "balance" is the answer.  We can't avoid these moments (or hours) of concern for our health or our relatives.  But we also need times of respite and gratitude can give us that.

Comments

  1. UnknownApril 18, 2020 at 10:26 AM

    Ah how lovely to hear about your father. Indeed watching nature is so therapeutic. We now have ducklings on the canal behind our house. I have been out every day this week to look at their cute little fluffy bodies, so fresh and energetic and a wonderful reminder that life in nature goes on still in all its glory despite the pandemic. How can we not be grateful? It would be wrong not to be.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Sue WalkerApril 18, 2020 at 10:43 AM

      I'm glad you agree! Your duckling visits sound therapeutic and that is what we all need big doses of right now. Thanks for reading!

      Delete

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

A wonderful week of nourishment at Cortijo Romero in Spain.

Image
On Easter Saturday (2022) I arrived at the gates of Cortijo Romero in Southern Spain and was greeted by Lelly, the host for the week.  "How was your journey?" she asked kindly.  My answer to this was, "fine, everything had run surprisingly smoothly".  My EasyJet flight wasn't cancelled; there were no long queues at security as shown in the media;  I managed to breath comfortably through my FFP2 face mask for the entire journey (phew) and my digital NHS Covid Pass was accepted.  Having not left England for well over two years, there was definitely more effort needed to remember how to navigate travel again.  An element of uncertainty lingered in the background while making these plans to visit Cortijo Romero, but I accepted this as part of the "new normal" that we are supposedly adjusting to.  And, miraculously, each step of the plan fell into place until I was finally here, in one of the most peaceful and healing places that I know. As I walked around
Read more

How Cortijo Romero, in Spain, is keeping calm and riding the ups and downs of the pandemic.

Image
Early August at Cortijo Romero is normally hot, but a warm breeze allows guests to relax fully under the clear blue summer skies.  Nestled in a lush, fertile valley within the Alpujurra region of southern Spain, Cortijo Romero has been welcoming guests for over three decades.  It describes itself as a personal development or creative holiday centre with a weekly programme that ranges from yoga courses, walking weeks, all kinds of creative expression to more therapeutic courses.  As you arrive at Cortijo Romero (CR) after a long journey, you are greeted by both the warm staff and a deeply nourishing energy that feels like no where else on earth.  It makes me want to breathe more deeply, as if a weight lifts from my shoulders and I arrive back home fully into my own self.  I've been fortunate to visit as a guest a number of times, mostly participating in restful and rejuvenating yoga courses.  I have also worked and lived in this beautiful oasis for two periods as their volunteer
Read more

When life takes an unexpected turn, the sudden passing of my father.

Image
How do I begin?  It was only a little over two weeks ago early on Saturday morning that I heard the phone ring.  I was in the bathroom at that moment, so all I heard was Martin saying "it's your sister, it's your sister, she has to speak to you".  First thing in the morning calls from my sister have never been good news, so I already knew this was about my dad.  I begged the universe for him to be poorly but still with us, so that we could dash to be with him but my wishes were already too late.  He had died peacefully in his sleep at his care home, having had a totally "normal" day previously.  He had been getting weaker in the last few months, but nothing that gave concern. Perhaps the sudden, unexpected part of this loss makes it more difficult for it to sink in.  The weekend passed in an emotional blur with a strange mixture of adrenaline and grief.  I had such a strong impulse to do something, to rush to his side and help.  But there was nothing we coul
Read more

The wonders of sea swimming during lockdown! And how to get the health benefit without freezing!

Image
I am having two different conversations while out on my walks by the sea with locals.  The first involves the pandemic situation here in my little seaside town.  Up until recently, it has felt like a safe haven with relatively low case numbers.  But things change quickly in a pandemic and at the weekend more than one neighbour cheerfully commented that "we have gone purple" now.  Fortunately I have stared at the colourful coronavirus map of the UK enough times to know that purple means a lot of cases.  As I wonder how on earth that happened so quickly, it is also a stark reminder that there is actually a pandemic still rumbling away which is now more prevalent here. Fortunately the second conversation is about swimming and how I am managing to swim in the sea without freezing.  And that is a very good question that I am exploring.  The most commonly asked question is "what do you wear?"  There seems to be a divide in the world of open-water swimming about whether t
Read more

Coast to coast walk day 5. The last section, reaching the south-east coast of Kent! Walking to support Cortijo Romero in Spain.

Image
Yesterday we finally embarked on the last section of our "coast to coast" walk continuing from our previous stop at the village of Etchinghill on the Elham Valley Way.  This final part of the route would take us all the way to the south-east coast of Kent, finishing on the beach at the seaside town of Hythe.  As with many things during the last 18 months of the pandemic, the walk has not gone to plan.  We intended to walk this section two weeks ago, but my on-going health struggles following my second Pfizer jab had other ideas.  Twenty-four hours after completing our previous section of the walk, I was suddenly ill again with more post-vaccine symptoms.  It has taken until now (alongside my GP's firm instruction to not suddenly over-do the exercise) to feel able to walk this far. Etchinghill was bathed in the most glorious morning light with clear blue skies above us and a definite autumnal chill in the air.  We retraced our steps for a mile or so from our last section a
Read more

How to get through Covid fatigue - have patience and rest or push on through?

Image
Getting covid for the first time was a bit of a shock, having managed to escape it for two and a half years.  I had just come back from a nourishing Ayurvedic retreat in Herefordshire and had been feeling relaxed and well.  A few days later, however, I rapidly felt ill with the classic signs: sore throat, fever and aching muscles.  I just knew that I finally had covid.  It was definitely more flu-like than a sniffly cold and took well over ten days to be out of bed very much.  But nearly six weeks on, I am still on the slow path to recovery... I keep telling myself that I am slowly improving.  The constant headache around the front of my head finally subsided which was a relief.  The muscle aches are less common.  I still cough, especially if I overdo things.  But the main thing left is the fatigue.  Like fatigue I have never experienced before.  It is not being tired nor low energy.  It feels like a strange creature has come to hang out in my body for a while.  Yet the fatigue also f
Read more

Making a pilgrimage to lay flowers for the Queen and our collective loss.

Image
I stood in a local supermarket early yesterday morning choosing flowers to lay at Green Park next to Buckingham Palace for the Queen.  I wanted to ask someone for advice or reassurance.  Could I just take a small bunch of carnations that spoke to me, in bright pink or yellow?  Surely for the Queen, I should take a specially made bouquet, with exactly the flowers that she loved?  I reasoned that there would be already a lot of flowers there and that a small, biodegradable gesture would be perfectly acceptable.   Clutching my pink carnations, I followed a number of other people from Victoria Station making their way up to Hyde Park Corner.  Having not been to London since the pandemic began, it already felt strange to be among crowds, traffic and police.  Thankfully I had arrived early and there was plenty of space to walk along the pavement.  Turning into Green Park, however, I suddenly saw hundreds of people all making the same pilgrimage to the flowers.  Drawn by the same force that h
Read more

From a blog to a book! Contributing to an anthology of stories titled "Love in the time of Corona - Covid Chronicles."

Image
"Life is what happens to us while we are making other plans" is a phrase that often appears on colourful inspirational cards and magnets.  I even had this boldly displayed on my fridge for a few years, in the extremely slim chance that I might realise the truth within these words.  More often than not, I rolled my eyes while opening the fridge as I rushed from completing one plan to the next during my very focused and busy life as a teacher. During our long pandemic year, I have been forced to re-consider this phrase.  It could even be tweaked to read:   "Life is what happens to us while we can't actually make plans". I still find it rather surreal to be waiting on data, variants, vaccines and travel ministers before we can start to even think about making a plan to travel out of the UK.  But this is how the pandemic has gone.  My penchant for the security of making and completing plans has been tested so many times in the pandemic that I cope by making as few p
Read more

Why is resting so difficult to actually do? A peaceful weekend remembering how to slow down!

Image
"Rest more and take things easy for a while" is advice we have probably all heard or given at some point in our lives.  My GP told me recently to ensure that I rested while still recovering from a persistent virus and bronchitis.  I listened to her words of advice with a deep sense of relief, as if permission was being given to do what my body needs.  But simultaneously I wanted to ignore such advice and keep going as "normal".  I have a deeply ingrained habit of pushing on through, no matter how I feel, to get something done.  If I rest, I won't "progress" or "keep up" and will miss out on things.  Someone has to hold everything together I say to myself, that someone being me!  If I rest, the world could actually fall apart while I'm relaxing somewhere peaceful? Sound familiar?  Having ignored my body's natural need to slow down and rest for decades, I now find myself being forced to pay more attention due to my health.  If I overdo
Read more

Swimming (and walking) in the snow while soaking up the beauty of nature.

Image
I think I might have got hooked on sea swimming, just a little, perhaps?  Last week I saw that snow was forecast and my first thought was "great, I can swim while the beach is covered in snow".  I have been excited for days that our little seaside town might get snow that actually settles on the ground rather than the mushy wet slush we've had.  I've not seen snow for years and while we are starting month FOUR of pretty much "lockdown" in this area, snow is beyond exciting.  It means I can have a mini-adventure right from my house and see the world looking all sparkly and white.  Snow feels like a change, a much needed break from the monotony and routine of these weeks of "staying at home".  I was so excited yesterday morning when I woke expecting swathes of pristine, not-yet-walked-on snow.  As I opened the curtains, my heart sank just a little because the snow wasn't settling.  But there were delicate snowflakes coming down alongside the free
Read more