Thread by @WesElyMD

1/🧵Gratitude is Pain’s big brother
 
▪️Prof Greg teaches me to accept life on life’s terms
▪️ICU pts teach me how to traverse pain
▪️Gratitude is their close companion
▪️Gratitude is not just a tenet of etiquette – it’s an essential quality of well-being

#UpSyndrome
Pics w perm

2/ I can’t pay gratitude w a checkbook, only from the ❤️

📍My Gratitude Ledger is in deficit because I don’t nurture #Wisdom
 📍I underutilize this superpower of recovery
 📍Gratitude is Greg’s antidote to victimhood
📍It helps him rise above any situation

#TheLuckyFew

3/ Gratitude can’t be reduced to verbal or written acknowledgment of a gift 🎁
 
Greg has a deep sense of awareness of his interdependency on others, you & me, his sisters & brothers.

He’s gracious in heartfelt appreciation despite living w great disabilities.

#FindYourTribe

4/ I’m not self-sufficient
 
✔️ This fact is encoded in nature itself
 ✔️I came into existence completely & totally helpless & unaware of who I was
✔️Everything immediately following birth was done for me, except natural body functions & even these were tended to by others!

5/ Even as a child, I’d already accumulated innumerable gifts for which to be thankful & I plunged “into the red” in terms of gratefulness.

Somehow Greg never dipped into a well of self-pity

His heart remained where I want mine - constantly accepting what IS…

#DownSyndrome

6/ Everything given to me has come at some sacrifice from someone else.
 
Sometimes these sacrifices were done voluntarily & joyfully, sometimes they were done begrudgingly. 
 
Either way, sacrifices were made, and I do not stand alone on an island…

gratitude is in order…

7/ It is a difficult truth that in some cases I owe a debt of gratitude to people who have not been very virtuous themselves.
 
A child of a bad parent may have many legitimate complaints about that parent…

Yet immense gain is mine of I change my mindset.

8/One of the ways I get a sense of the importance of gratitude is by experiencing #ingratitude from others.

The feeling of being used is painful when I’ve given to others, or worse, when they deny the reality of the gift itself as if I had no role to play in their receiving it.

9/ Pain is greater when my gift was out of genuine love & not merely out of a sense of duty or pity.

Until I reach a greater state of spiritual enlightenment, the experience of ingratitude from others still leaves me feeling angry, betrayed & deeply hurt.

This is my error.

10/ Let’s go deeper on this topic…

Does Ingratitude diminish personhood❓

🔹I believe it’s in giving that I receive
🔹When my gift is not acknowledged, does it diminish me?
🔹Am I bereft because I gave at a cost?

11/ When ingratitude is present, the reciprocity that connects giver & recipient is absent.

There’s a lack of wholeness in the relationship that I had anticipated.

Expectations control my thinking 💥

Good news: I can drop expectations in favor of acceptance.

12/ A true gift is of course isn’t given with strings attached.
 
It’s not a fee paid for a service the giver expects to be rendered.
 
Gratitude is not the performance required after a purchased service.

13/ Those dynamics are appropriate to contractual agreements - not personal relationships.
 
Gratitude presupposes a genuine freedom on the part of both giver & recipient.
 
The giver is not compelled to give, the recipient is not coerced to receive.

14/ Gratitude is the spontaneous reaction of appreciation in response to a gift, no matter how small.
 
When true giving is met with genuine gratitude, both giver & recipient grow in goodness.
 
But should my growth or joy in giving be diminished by a recipient’s anemic response?

15/ As a father, I have allowed myself to take it personally when what I gave was discarded or unwanted.
 
This is because I manufactured expectations that were unrealized.
 
Again, my problem…not theirs.

16/ As a recipient of #Grace, my own ingratitude imprisons me
 
☑️In contrast, gratitude transforms me as a recipient
 ☑️Gratitude takes the focus off me & orients me to the generosity of the Giver
 ☑️Thankfulness liberates me & predisposes me to receive greater spiritual gifts

17/ Wherever you are, whatever your station, how grateful are you? 
 
How often do I accept the gift but fail to give thanks to the giver?
 
How often do I cherry pick the gifts for which to be grateful?

#Greg is very consistent.
My patients are a close second in thankfulness.

18/ Ultimately I want to detach from what others say & do.

Except to draw on those experience & learn myself.

To become more like Greg, accepting of my place in this 🌎, I must SIMPLIFY my thinking.

Strip myself down & become unencumbered by pride.

#ChromosomallyEnhanced

19/fin
There is Beauty in Simplicity 🧵👇

This is how Greg lives

Daily, I watch him take small events & display immense thankfulness

He is transformed

Am I being transformed?

Will I allow myself to be radically improved by acceptance & nurture gratefulness?

#DesignerGenes

https://twitter.com/WesElyMD/status/1485964336795459590