How to Overcome Anger and Fear: Gratitude

Gratitude is a really important thing. I’ve mentioned before on my channel that I’ve been drug and alcohol counselor for over 20 years, and gratitude is kind of the foundational point. It issaid within different self-help circles that gratitude is the hinge in which the silver door swings. Gratitude plays a big part in people’s wellness, and so I thought it’d be really important to share a few minutes on that topic today. What I’m going to demonstrate is just kind of a routine that I’ve developed to kind of help exercise gratitude. The other thing that’s really important about gratitude is that it is the true counter to anger and fear, which are 2 common emotions that my clients go through, and struggle with especially in early recovery.

With regards to gratitude, how I like starting the exercises is I start with myself and spin outward. I’m going to explain how that works in a minute, but I start with myself and I spin outwardly, so my closest nucleus cell, my significant other, my son, and then I got to family members, then extended out further, and then community, and then community, and globally if we want. How I usually start my gratitude is what am I most grateful for? I’m grateful for the ability to speak. I’m grateful for my brain. I’m grateful for my heart which beats several thousand times a day, keep me alive. I’m grateful for my health, my mobility, things that I’m able to do on a daily basis to keep up with a 15-month old son. I’m grateful that I’m able to connect every day with clients on a different level.

Then if we move out quickly to just kind of give you this idea relatively quick, so the next level would be, I’m grateful for Natalie, my significant other and all the gifts that she brings into my life. The gift of laughter. The biggest gift is belief in me, and how that makes me feel. With each time you go outside and spin it to a new person you really take a moment to really take in what it feels like to be connected to that person. It’s like you’re sending out cosmically good vibe to them so that the universe if you will or God can take care of them also in the day. I like doing this activity at the beginning of the day, it kind of sets up a good frame for the day.

Next time my circle is my son Dominic who is a 15 months old. To get close to 16 months in just a week, and he’s the love of my life. He’s the first little face I see when I wake up. There’s a lot of times he’s hugging the bed with us, so it’s first thing I see in the morning and there’s nothing better than waking up and seeing this little face looking over, top of you saying, “Papa.” He just has a way of brightening my day. No matter how hard my day has been he has this great ability to bring me joy. The next nucleus would be my family, so I’m grateful for my mother and father. The values that they’ve taught me along the way, the values of hard work, dedication, loyalty, family, all demonstrated really well. Unfortunately in my life I lost my father when I was 25, but I often feel even in terms of working with clients that my dad truly speaks through me. Especially when it comes to spiritual topics my dad was a spiritual man, a religious man, and he took great pride in doing so. He was never embarrassed to say it, he took great pride in that.

I find that when I’m struggling with a certain topic, especially around spirituality, I really feel him speak through me, so that’s my gifts of my dad. My mom is loving, and the importance of family, and what as the matriarch keeping us in line, keeping us accountable, but always knowing that she always gives us a safe place to fall. Then would be my siblings, so my youngest sister is Diane. She always brings humor, laughter, same thing, high loyalty. She has friends that she’s had for a long time, and she’s been married for a long time. Is a great mother, great partner to her husband Michael, and really brings great gifts to her kids on a regular basis by being so dedicated and devoted to them.

Next in line would be my older brother Nelson. I’m very connected to him because of his own life path, and his own life journey. He was always the big brother I looked up to you, so he brings laughter into my life. He brings joy into my life. He gives me the ability to connect with someone on a different level. He’s one of the people I could say I’m closest to. Next would be my sister Carol. Again you’ll hear the theme with laughter, I think that’s another thing that dad instilled in us is the ability to laugh. She has the ability to play and have fun, and the ability to love more than you can imagine. She does it through gestures, through kindness, through her actions. Then it’s my older sister Delsia. My older sister is 16 years older than me so growing up I didn’t know her as much, but there’s a softness about her, a kindness about her. One of her greatest gifts is the ability to connect with almost anybody. If we are in transit in Toronto she will easily strike up a conversation with the person next to her, so she has that ability to connect with people, and has a huge, huge heart.

Next level would be relatives, so obviously too many to mention here. I usually take a moment and think about my cousins, aunts, and uncles who have created a special place in my life, and things that they bring to me. The roots of my family are very much Acadian, so East coast and I know when in some of my fondest childhood memories is just the laughter, tremendous laughter and stories. Nobody could tell us a story like an Acadian person with just the way they speak, and the expressive nature of their communication. It always brings a smile like it does now even thinking about it. Extended family, next we’ve got community, so I’m really grateful for the connections I’ve made in my community. Connections to colleagues, business partners, we’ve developed a network of counselors in Sudbury that collaborate on a monthly basis to not only sharpen our skills, but also I find that when you work one-on-one you’re often left on an island. So, I’ve always believed in the collaborative spirit that there is a river of abundance flowing around us and so the exchange of ideas is only going to make us richer. That’s within my community.

Sometimes I’m not so grateful to the extremes of temperatures, and Sudbury goes to +40 which would be +40 degrees Celsius, which is about high 90s and in the winter it gets to -40, which is probably around -40. Because once you have reached -15, it doesn’t matter if it’s Celsius or Fahrenheit, it’sthe same thing. But allows me to see 4 Seasons. I feel like I’m blessed to have that, I get to experience that. I get to show my son the changing of the seasons, and the snow, and all the winter sports that comes with it. Also within my community is the ability to play sports, enjoy sports, and all that kind of stuff.

The next level up would be country. I am very, very grateful to live in Canada. I’m grateful to be Canadian and everything that erupts, especially now with the Olympics going on. It’s funny because when you think you’re not really connected, you see an athlete representing your country and it brings a different level of pride. It gives you really a sense of “we” or a sense of belonging.

Then the last thing is just kind of connecting to your own source of higher power, so like I mentioned before, I often talk to my dad. It’s a person that meant a lot to me and kind of helps feed my own level of spirituality. That’s my routine. When I walk and do this, the routine usually doesn’t take longer than 5 to 10 minutes. I just kind of see in the gifts that every level brings me. It’s a great way to start the day. It’s a great way to set a frame up, so instead of feeling miserable as you start your day, it really creates a feeling of gratitude. Like I said before, gratitude is the counter to anger and fear, and in recovery talk those are the number 2 … 1 and 2 reasons for relapse. That’s a good kind of recovery message if that’s something that you are struggling with.

That’s the gratitude talk. I hope this has been helpful. As usual, if you can give me a like, share your comments. I would love to hear from you, and let me know if these videos have been helpful. Thank you so much for our moments of gratitude, thanks for coming, and have a great day.