Gratitude is a very powerful tool.

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It can help us to deal with some of the most difficult times.

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Finding something to be grateful for can be a challenge.

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Yet when we do, we can transform almost anything in our lives.

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Especially our trauma.

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We may look back on our lives and see a lot of pain and suffering.

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It can be hard to remember the good times.

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When we continually tell the story of our trauma we keep feeding it and keep it alive.

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We continue to blame others, and ourselves, and we stay the victim.

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The result is that we lose our agency and our power.

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If we decide that we've had enough of it and we want to change the story, then we can insert gratitude to create a whole new scenario.

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What was once an experience of neglect can now be seen as an opportunity for freedom.

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An experience of pain can now be seen as the fire that forged our metal.

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The anguish of abuse can be turned into a gift of a lifelong calling.

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In the moment all of these are horrible and painful experiences.

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With time and a shift of perspective we can undo the hold they have on us.

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By using gratitude to find a way to appreciate our life experiences, we can completely flip the story around.

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We used to talk about how neglected we were as a child.

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How we were left alone and not given ay guidance.

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And how that experience made us feel unloved and unwanted.

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By seeking for something to be grateful for we can totally change that story.

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Our neglect turns into our freedom.

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We are no longer left alone to fend for ourselves.

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Now, we say that we were given so much freedom so we could find ourselves.

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The lack of guidance turns into an opportunity to discover for ourselves our own unique path.

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And that feeling of being unloved and unwanted turns into a story of how much they loved us so much that they allowed us the freedom to find our own way.

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Now, we truly have something to be grateful for.

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Our story changes and we no longer tell the tale of the pain of neglect.

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That story is now one of the joy we had to find ourselves.

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And how grateful we are to have had that experience.

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Just like that our whole world changes.

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With a simple shift in perspective and with an eye towards what we have to be grateful for, we have reshaped our entire existence.

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Not in some ungrounded, whimsical way, but in a very real, very substantial way.

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All it takes is seeing through the eyes of gratitude.

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Of being will to consider that regardless of how much pain and suffering we have endured, that there is something to be grateful for.

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It may feel at times that there is nothing in our pain that we have to be grateful for.

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And that is okay for the moment.

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When we are truly ready to give up our pain, then we have the opportunity to start to change.

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And in that special moment, we can at least try to see through the eyes of appreciation and gratitude.

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Especially at this time of year.

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Do you have a pain you are tired of holding on to?

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Are you willing to try to see it through the eyes of gratitude?

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~ Sam Liebowitz, The Conscious Consultant

Host of The Conscious Consultant Hour