Working at gratitude...

or... trying to slay the beast of self pity.

The news of my colleague yesterday did really hit me. Poor bloke lost a young child some years back as well - as seems to be the way of the world the bad luck sometimes doesn't seem so generously spread around.

So I'm trying to work on my gratitude. I'll update my list in a moment, but the obvious ones are,sobriety, health, family, where I live (i.e. England compare it to much of Africa, or say North Korea... yep not so bad is it?), wealth, warmth, somewhere to live... etc. See I have simply so much to be grateful for. I might be being made redundant but as a friend of mine says "this company doesn't throw people on the scrapheap; it lays them on it gently". I love his humour, but in that it means my compensation payment is very generous, I've a load of shares that I can also cash in without Tax and NI liability and I'm getting all this help from the outplacement company. I'm off on a course about setting up your own business next month - not that that is my top priority but the course is free to me and simply an opportunity not to be missed.

However - the beast that is self pity is always lying there awaiting me. It drags me into the "everyone is smarter than me", "everyone has more of x than me", "I don't have this, I don't have that"... etc. The reading at our AA meeting last night was on this topic and it hit me how I can have those thoughts in my head too much and too often and I'm not sure I do enough to dispel them. I know the drill, look at what you do have not what you don't, look at others less fortunate than yourself, try to help those less fortunate, etc. etc. Easy said not so easy done especially when whatever I might say about the redundancy I cannot deny I'm anxious about exactly what the future does hold and therefore vulnerable to these emotions more at the moment.

The top thing to be grateful for is always at the top of my list... I haven't thought about having a drink. That for an alcoholic no matter how long away from the booze is remarkable. I don't look to drink to fix me, or more accurately temporarily numb me from whatever is hurting me. I have to stand up and face it and work it through and somehow these days I do that sober, remarkable!

I'm off to the solicitors in a while since I have a compromise agreement as part of the severance deal that I have to sign - essentially saying I won't take the money and then try to sue for more. All good fun.

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