You never know how close you are to something terrible happening. That was the feeling my client struggled with for a long time after enduring life-threatening experiences in her childhood. And, while she’d worked through a lot of her anger and anxiety, she was still struggling with accessing joy.
“I don’t feel particularly happy or grateful for my life,” she said. Why should she feel grateful, she wondered, for this world in which she survived by dumb accident and tragedy could strike at any moment? For her, the universe is chaotic and uncaring, (evoking philosopher Thomas Hobbes’ claim that life is “nasty, brutish, and short”).
During our session, I asked what we might uncover if we lean even further into life’s randomness but shifted the tone from despair to wonder. “It is by pure chance that our world exists at all,” I said. “Molecules bumping into each other and then, boom, here it is, we’ve got bumble bees. Plants turn light into food! That’s crazy!" I marveled. My client chuckled and agreed, pointing out that we were people talking to each other on laptops from halfway across the world.
“Yes! None of this could be, and yet, by some mystery, it is.” I said. I suggested that rather than forcing ourselves to feel “gratitude,” per se, perhaps we just allow ourselves to sit in wonder at this incredible accident and think: “The fact that I am able to witness this at all is just damn lucky.”
“Damn lucky. I like that,” my client said with a smile. “I think it’s easier to feel damn lucky than grateful.”
She reflected how feeling damn lucky is still joyful and acknowledges the good things in life, but without implying a benevolent source or a deserving and worthy recipient.
So, I offer this practice to you. What do you feel damn lucky to witness? Share your answer in the Mother Den community.
Danielle LaSusa Ph.D. is a Philosophical Coach, helping new moms grapple with what it means to make a person. She is the creator of The Meaning of Motherhood course, and co-creator and co-host of Think Hard podcast, which brings fun, accessible, philosophical thinking to the real world. To join her mailing list, subscribe here.
© Copyright Danielle LaSusa PhD, LCC, 2021. All rights reserved.
