{"id":36766,"date":"2019-06-24T06:30:42","date_gmt":"2019-06-23T18:30:42","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/helenlowe.info\/blog\/?p=36766"},"modified":"2019-06-23T14:57:23","modified_gmt":"2019-06-23T02:57:23","slug":"thankfulness-week-24-30-june-what-are-you-thankful-for","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/helenlowe.info\/blog\/2019\/06\/24\/thankfulness-week-24-30-june-what-are-you-thankful-for\/","title":{"rendered":"Thankfulness Week 24-30 June: What Are You Thankful For?"},"content":{"rendered":"

Recently, I learned that the NZ mental health project Be Great has designated June 24-30 as Thankfulness Week.<\/p>\n

The reasons why are summarised in The Thankfulness Project 2019 page<\/a> on the Be Great<\/a> website:<\/p>\n

\"\"To lift spirits in the coldest darkest week of the year<\/span><\/h3>\n

June 24 – 30 is one of the lowest daylight hour weeks in New Zealand, a cold and dark time when people can struggle with depression. The goal is to help people in this time by inspiring them to think of all the good things there are about being alive as opposed to the cold and dark time of year it is.<\/span><\/h4>\n

The way I clicked onto the project, though, was from seeing an advertisement in my local newspaper (I know, so old school! \ud83d\ude09 ), heralding the week with the header question:<\/p>\n

\u201cWhat Are You Thankful For?\u201d<\/strong><\/p>\n

I\u2019ve known about the idea of \u2018thankfulness\u2019 and the connection to mental health for some time and have found it a useful exercise to occasionally take a moment of quietness \u201camid the noise and haste\u201d (to quote Max Ehrmann\u2019s Desiderata<\/em>) and focus on the \u201cgood stuff\u201d, aka those aspects of life and my experience of it that I\u2019m thankful for.<\/p>\n

\"\"

This used to be my gym<\/p><\/div>\n

I probably did it more regularly immediately after Christchurch\u2019s February 22nd<\/sup> 2011 earthquake, because it felt important to stay focused on the \u201chalf full\u201d side of the glass, when there was so much \u201chalf empty\u201d all around. Although this state has gradually eased, as you\u2019d expect, over the past eight years, the need to stay grounded and remind myself of the plus side did continue well beyond the immediate event (a bit like the years of aftershocks, lol.)<\/p>\n

In terms of continuation, those who’ve been through similar experiences will not be surprised to learn that the \u201cdisaster and heroic\u201d phase was succeeded by what I described as the \u201cgrunge\u201d transition of \u201ceverything broken, very little happening\/changing\u201d, then the subsequent iterations of \u201crepair\/rebuild\u201d and \u201crecovery\u201d, which were characterized by an unrelenting grimness and grind of bureaucracy, insurance \u201csettlements\u201d (ha!), and negotiating the physical realities of the repair\/rebuild process on a citywide scale.<\/p>\n

\"\"

Friends & neighbours, being the solution 2011<\/p><\/div>\n

So as you\u2019re probably guessing, reminding oneself of the positives, starting with being alive immediately post February 22nd<\/sup>(!) was an important part of keeping going. It can be a little challenging to do it in a public way without seeming saccharine, so usually it\u2019s a private exercise, but since this is Thankfulness Week, I thought getting on board with a post was a good way of showing support.<\/p>\n

The exercise set out in the advertisement was to \u201clook around and think of 10-20 things you are thankful for, such as life, family, friends, you, your body, this country, your vocation\u2026\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n

My list actually has a pretty long tail depending on how far I did down in terms of detail, but for today I\u2019m keeping it to the big hits:<\/p>\n