Let Gratitude Be Your Guide

…and Waiting be your Gift…

I had already been there for 45 minutes when they told me,

“It’s going to be at least another hour until the doctor can see you.”

A million things raced through my head but I decided to respond with the only word I could get out.

“Ok.”

It was a mix of emotions sitting there inside me. Frustration dancing around with sadness, high-fiving anxiety, pulling around pain.

But then it came…

Gratitude.

• I was grateful I had an external charger, because my phone was about to die after 45 minutes of trying to distract my mind waiting for the doctor.
• I was grateful my husband was working late and as long as the doctor didn’t take too long, I would most likely be home to greet him when arrived back at the house.
• I was grateful for… (Honestly, my mind blanked a little at this point and I really wanted to switch over to a list of things I wasn’t so grateful for, but I wound up being grateful I didn’t actually go this route because I moved on to deeper things)
• I was grateful I had health insurance.
• I was grateful to live in a world with modern technology.
• I was grateful for lungs that could breathe in the air around me.
• I was even grateful I had the weird skill of being able to wiggle my nostrils (it sounds silly but I really got to this point and had to just keep my brain distracted and focused on thinking positively no matter what.)

In Charge of Our Own Happiness

While in the waiting room I reminded myself again and again that no one could control my emotions, no one could give happiness, except for me.

This is absolutely true. In theory. I think it’s just getting there that’s the tough part.

When you hit a roadblock, the world is telling you to refocus and change course.

Writing down a list of things I was grateful for definitely helped me. At times, I felt this silly calm come over me. I was immediately reminded of a study my friend participated in where they measured the effects of stressful occurrences while she held her lovers hand vs nothing at all. It was the idea of your lover there beside you, the idea of a grateful heart…

I think it’s a lot like a mom being able to kiss a boo-boo better. Can kisses really heal paper cuts?

It’s cliche, but love has a power to do amazing things to our brain. (You don’t necessarily need a lover for this either, you can focus on a fandom you like, or something tasty you ate, a pet you care about, a funny joke between you and a sibling, etc…) Love and gratitude come in many forms. When we channel them, we calm our minds.

I also think writing down a list helped me put everything into perspective a little more. I wasn’t harmed waiting there a little bit longer. No wars were waged. No one died. And actually, good things came from it.

I came away from the experience more mindful and more at peace than when I had even entered the room to begin with.

Let Gratitude Be Your Guide

I also came out of the experience writing a short poem about gratitude which I will end here with now…

❤️

When you become weighed down by this, and that, and all the things

When emotions push you around like some puppet on strings

Make a list of all you love, try to force your mind to shift

Just let Gratitude be your guide and Waiting be your gift

When your mind begins to fight back and then starts drawing blanks

Just focus on the good, continue writing out your thanks

Don’t let the roadblocks stop you, don’t let your mind start to drift

Just let Gratitude be your guide, let Waiting be your gift

…

Has anyone else out there experienced this kind of waiting only to find a positive experience thereafter?

Do you have any tips for keeping your mind focused on positivity? I would love to hear about it in the comments below…