"Thank You" by Brynn Scally
This year was a hard one for me, but it also doesn’t feel right to categorize it. Trying to think of a certain one thing for this blog in terms of gratitude as I pause in the face of this lovely tradition is hard because of course I am grateful for so much but am also in the midst of a healing process. I am grateful to be able to sit here in the comfort of a loving home and share my feelings with people involved in a job I love and to be able to afford the luxury of having a job that fulfills me. After this year these points of gratitude seem almost surface. In the midst of healing, the gratitude now reaches deeper. Saying what I feel truly grateful for right now almost feels too delicate, as though even drawing attention to it could throw it off some unknown cosmic course.
Of course all things that are meaningful in life are fragile. Its how we handle this fragility that cures the complex beauty of our relationships and our inner life. I am grateful for the relationships in my life that I saved from atrophy by facing the fire. I am grateful to yoga for helping me learn to face that fire. I am also grateful to yoga for teaching me when things aren’t worth my energy, allowing those connections to fall away when its their time, but still seeing how those connections contributed to my growth.
Sometimes grateful feels like too small a word for me, but repeating the mantra of “thank you” somehow feels more right. I once read that gratitude is practicing mindfulness. With all the bullshit that surrounds the story of thanksgiving, I am grateful to be given this pause each year where we are mindful of the comfort, beauty and fragility of our surroundings.
This week I will be leading a yoga Nidra class and our intention, or mantra, will be the words “thank you.” We will be moving our awareness through our bodies and repeating the words “thank you.” For example, I bring my awareness right now to my open hands. I say thank you that life has gifted and entrusted me to care for fragile things.
Now I bring my hands together in prayer.