It’s Not Just Saying You’re Grateful

How’s that for a blog title this time of year?

This is the time of year when many people, in the US at least, will talk about gratitude and how grateful they are. I know, mind-blown already.

But that’s really only less than half of the equation.

There’s something else. 

A few weeks back I was doing some field work in the Peruvian Amazon. And by field work I mean experiential research with an indigenous group called the Shipibo. I was there to learn from them, go through some of their rituals and ceremonies and see how I would grow. If you haven’t kept up with the whole story, you can read part 1, part 2 and part 3 of my blog about my experience and learning there. 

One of the key aspects of the practices, and I knew this going in, was what’s called dry fasting. That means no food and no water. No water (or liquid products like sunscreen or toothpaste) can touch your body or go into your body during the period of dry fasting. 

Daily fasts were about 24 hours. That became a bit routine going through it on a daily basis. But my longest fast was almost 54 hours — more than 2 days with no sustenance and no water in the sweltering jungles of the Amazon. It’s hard to put into words what exactly it’s like unless you’ve been through something similar. Hunger pangs I can deal with. The taste and dryness in my mouth (not to mention the rest of my body) was something else… 

And then the time came. There’s a bell they ring when the fast is over and you can consume again. It’s kind of like the ice cream truck of the Shipibo — you hear that music and it just lights you up. 

The first sip of water was like breathing for the first time. I said a short prayer before eating, but when I put that first bit of intentionally bland, unflavored and unsalted food in my mouth, a feeling of gratitude overwhelmed me. Every cell in my body exuded an enormous thank you. I actually felt gratitude for that food and water in my bones, it was so deep. And that experience has stuck with me. 

It’s not just saying you’re grateful. It’s feeling it. 

Prior to that experience, I often did say I was grateful and thankful for things; to be clear I was. And you might find yourself, this time of year doing something similar. But just using words of thanks is not the same as actually feeling it. Cultivating the human experience of gratitude is something else entirely. 

This Thanksgiving, I invite you to pause, slow down and take at least a moment to experience gratitude for yourself. It will make all the difference. I know I, for one, will never again take even the simplest things we enjoy for granted and be forever on that myself.

Happy Thanksgiving.