Thanksgiving has been my favorite holiday for years and years. There’s just something about the simplicity of cooking and eating and spending time with people you love. It feels cozy and domestic and festive, and what’s not to like about that?

And then there’s the whole gratitude component. Which is pretty great in spirit and theory, and even in practice when it works. But I have to confess that sometimes I have trouble putting it into practice in a way that feels true and joyful.

Back when gratitude journals became the rage, I gave it a shot, but the practice never really stuck. It didn’t feel right, it didn’t feel like me. And it felt like trying too hard. The things on my list always seemed so obvious or redundant. Which usually made me doubt myself, my capacity for joy, my character. Surely I’ve always had plenty to be thankful for, so what the hell was wrong with me?

And yeah, this kind of practice is supposed to feel expansive and affirming. And instead it sometimes gave me a new reason to beat myself up, which really goes against everything I believe about the experience of having a conscious and loving relationship with yourself. Maybe the clue is in that word supposed. Hello resistance. I’m supposed to cultivate an awareness of abundance. Um, no.

Because it’s not that I never dwell in gratitude. Sometimes it sweeps me up illuminating everything in my life and leaving me feeling humbled and mesmerized with the very nature of the universe. I find little and big things to be thankful for all of the time. And I know abundance afficionados would say I’m missing the point: that the idea is to consciously create that inner expansion instead of waiting for it to happen to me. But, I guess it’s in my contrarian nature to need to do it my way.

Anyway, it is Thanksgiving. So this morning in my journal, I wrote a page of thanks for this year, and a page of thanks for next year. And I’m chagrined to tell you that I’ve been all cheery and light hearted and glowy ever since. I feel connected and centered and peaceful. Argh. 

So just one tiny thing I’m grateful for today: I ate breakfast on my patio in my pajamas in the warm sunshine. And now I’m driving to a cabin in the mountains where I’ll wear a scarf and play “brrr, it’s winter” for the day. That and Valrhona Le Noir Extra Amer 85% Cocoa chocolate. Bliss in a bite.

After that teeny rant, I can’t exactly ask you to share your gratitude list. So share whatever feels right, and know that I’m thankful for blogging and I’m thankful for you.

Boy there are a lot of experiences I’d like to have realize I am already having and start appreciating.

I can get pretty absorbed in the future. Erm, okay, obsessed. Example? I spent most mornings this summer walking my dog down at the lake by our house.  Some days as we walked out onto the dock and looked at the houses across the glassy water, I would find myself thinking about how I would like to live near a lake someday.

At which point I’d hear this horrific screeching sound as the wheel in my brain stopped turning, and I wondered what the hell I was thinking.  I was living by a lake in that very freakin’ moment. Maybe I’m just missing the second half of the desire: I would like to live near a lake someday, and be present enough to drink in the wonder of it.

Because today, I don’t live by a lake anymore. I moved from wet, green Washington back to warm, dry Los Angeles. Now there is a canyon out my back door that I can start taking for granted.

This is not a new pattern for me: I did the same thing living in San Francisco.  I adored my neighborhood: the shops on the main street, the hill I had to climb to get home, the view of the city from the my bay window. But come on, this is a city chock full of cool neighborhoods. And sometimes I’d go wandering some other awesome area and I’d find myself imagining how nice it would be to live in a neighborhood like that. You know, someday. And of course I’d imagine that when that day came, I’d really be grateful. 

Um. Huh? What is this about?  Oh, lots of things. The idea that comes to mind today is that maybe it’s possible to have too many choices.  As someone who gets high (and not in a good way) off grass-is-greener thinking, I’m trying out a new technique: when I start thinking about how great something will be in the future, I want to try coming up with one reason why my present circumstance is actually better. To remind me that there are reasons to be happy right here.

Future focus certainly has its place. Embracing change and taking action are part of life. And actually, these are some of my favorite parts.  But for me, there’s a fine line between settling and allowing myself to settle in. If you’re the type to avoid change and action, if you beat yourself up for wanting more by thinking that you should appreciate what you have now, this tool of mine might actually be counterproductive for you.

But if you start noticing this eerie repetition of retroactive appreciation or wishing fervently for things you actually already have, maybe give it a try. And let me know how it goes, or whether you have another technique for sinking into this moment and realizing you’re already kind of “there”. Where things are actually pretty good.

I’m sick. I don’t know if it’s a cold or the flu or maybe something similar that causes me to sit down in the shower to avoid blacking out from fever.

The timing is kind of crappy. I got sick the night before I flew to Telluride. For work. For the production thing I do sometimes in addition to my coaching thing. And production … um, yeah. The production world is kind of big on working hard. There’s this euphemism they like to use for working around the clock: they call it industry hours. It means we head out to location a couple of hours before sunrise and call it a night right before morning. Did I mention that I’m sick?

Whatever I have is hyper-contagious and I’m basically quarantined in the hotel to protect everyone else here. Cabin fever doesn’t begin to describe spending all day in my dingy room. In Telluride. In Autumn. Oh man. And I was actually feeling much better today than yesterday. But then I accidentally exhausted myself by doing something strenuous like, I don’t know, sitting up for too long.

Oh the boredom. I drove to the last shoot and brought no less than 12 books and didn’t have time to read anything. I flew to this shoot and had room for only one book. Big mistake. Next time, less warm clothes (it’s only supposed to snow one of the days), and more books (priorities, you know?).

So in all of my boredom and feverish delirium, I’m asking myself a new favorite question I keep hearing some of my favorite people use: What’s perfect about this situation?

I don’t know about you, but when I’m sick I tend to feel all delicate and fragile and pathetic. And asking this kind of question sets your brain on a far kinder mission to look for positive evidence of good things rather than seeking out clues that the sky is falling. As always, asking this question won’t help if you end up turning the idea into a should, as in: What the hell is wrong with me? I should be able to see the benefits of my raging fever and hacking cough. So, you know, only use it if it helps.

Specifically, what’s perfect about getting sick right now?

1. I got to participate in coaching group call today I otherwise would have missed.

2. I’m writing this blog post in which I nag you to get lots of rest and take vitamins and eat healthy and wash your hands neurotically.

3. I now know for sure that I haven’t been missing anything on daytime television. At least not on the 7 channels I get in my hotel room.

4. I usually spend the whole time on a shoot obsessed with avoiding getting sick, because, well, lack of sleep is kind of my achilles heel. But this time: been there, done that. So I can just embrace the exhaustion. 

5. Two words: blog archives. Catching up on all sorts of stuff I’ve missed from my favorites. Seriously, hooray.

6. I got an awesome reminder of my work ethic. The fact that I usually work my ass off makes being stuck in my room easier to bear. Because even though I wish I were working and contributing to the project, I know that the producer knows that I’m sick and not just shirking.

7. This really weird moment of clarity in which I welcome viral or bacterial yuckiness in an e-mail to my mom (yes, I e-mail my mom when I’m sick):

Anyway, I’m hoping that whatever I have is bacterial so that these antibiotics will help and also so that I’m not taking antibiotics unnecessarily. Although if it were the flu, that would build up my antibodies for this flu season which is supposed to be pretty yucky. So either way, win-win.

And there we have the annoyingly perky part. I think I need to go lie down now. Vitamin up.

I kind of mentioned on Wednesday that sleep is my achilles heel.  Well, actually, my obsession with getting enough of it.  See, I can be kind of a slave to sleep.  Also a bit of a sleep whore/pimp.  Yes, it’s that bad.

Sleep pimp, you ask.  Mmmhmmm.  Don’t make me lecture you.  I will espouse so many benefits it will put you right to zzzzzz- SEE???

So as part of my annoying habit to look for the good in crappy situations, I’m wondering: why do I make more progress with taking risks and other scary stuff when I’m tired and grumpy?  Don’t you just hate it when your achilles heel turns out to be some backwards, roundabout gift?  Argh. 

Some of my tweeple suggested that maybe exhaustion lowers my resistance.  (Yes, I have cool tweeps.  You could, too, if you were tweeting. We already talked about this.  Sheesh.)

When I’m overtired, it’s almost like the utterly charming trifecta of my inner critic / ego / people pleaser sulks or snoozes in the corner while I start ticking scary things off my list.  This is a fairly new development though.

New because now I love what I’m doing, and all of these scary little steps are vital to doing more of it.   Being exhausted in my former career, the one I didn’t love, was not pretty.  It meant surfing the web, instant messaging my friends all day, and eating every bit of the chocolate out of my desk drawers.

For me, the nifty benefit about discovering the benefits of sleep withdrawal is that it allows me to ease up on the feedback screech. Usually instead of just accepting that I’m tired in this moment, I cause myself all kinds of unnecessary anxiety.  I wake up tired and think whine:

Oh no!  I’m so tired, and now I’ll be tired all day, and I really wanted it to be a good day and I have so much to do and I’m so tired and I won’t be productive and everything won’t be perfect.

With this new discovery, I can consciously try to use the sleep-deprived days to tackle a few things I’m terrified to do.  Quick! While the monster is sleeping! Send out that marketingish e-mail!  And then take a shower to rinse away the grime.

Now that I’ve had this little insight, I’m not going to tell you that I enjoy being tired.  Nosiree.  Not even one miniscule iota.  But I am grateful that the discovery of less ego chatter helps me quell the feedback screech.  

When I was five, my dad and sister used to pay my little chatterbox self a dollar to be quiet for an hour.  If only it were that easy with my ego – I need all the help I can get.  (Pshaw.  I never earned that dollar.)

We’re experiencing a bit of a heat wave in the Pacific Northwest, and I spent last night tossing and turning in my blazing hot bedroom.  I tried to exhaust myself by doing a mental rundown of the little things I noticed during the day that made me feel grateful. 

This tactic was meant to distract me from ruminating about how little rest I was getting in the hot air and sticky sheets.  You could say I have a healthy enthusiasm for getting enough sleep.  (Anyone who knows me is chuckling at this blatant understatement, muttering “sleep freaking zealot, more like it” under their breath.)

Okay.  So I had taken some risks yesterday, putting myself out there to move my business forward.  And I also received some encouragement and well-wishing about the progress I’ve made so far.  I figured I’d have lots of neat, little measurable accomplishments.  

So I was somewhat surprised that the moments flitting through my mind were so small.

Like watching my hot, little puppy dog chewing on an ice cube to cool himself down.  Like catching up with a great friend from grad school I had lost touch with.  Like the voicemail from my mom saying she wished I was at the beach with her and that she missed me.

Of course I’m proud of the risks I took in my business, and the compliments I’m receiving about the progress.  But these other shining, little moments were a gentle nudge to keep relishing the ride.  

I was forgetting that it’s not about reaching some imagined “there,” where success and accomplishment abound.  I had been getting ahead of myself, trying to make decisions ten steps ahead of where I am, wanting it all right now.

The funny thing is that I absolutely get this.  I know how dangerous when/then thinking can be.  It’s one of my favorite areas to coach other people.  

I used to torture myself with this line of thinking all the time.  When I’m pin thin, then I’ll be carefree.  When my long distance boyfriend and I move to the same city, then our relationship will be perfect.  When I live in a new city, then I’ll like my career.

And?  I realized being carefree comes first, and is what I really wanted all along.  The long distance boyfriend is now the long distance ex.  I left that city and that career.

Of course, our best realizations and insights are usually hard won.  We earn the wisdom after the mistake knocks us down a few hundred times. But still, still, I always need reminders.

And the crazy thing is that noticing these little gifts makes it way easier to take even more risks, to keep putting myself out there, to risk some failure. Because I have a reserve of joy to see me through.  

By peering very closely at these happy moments, no matter how tiny, we can steer ourselves back on the right course.  Because we catch a glimpse of what matters.  

Does this realization mean I’m supposed to be grateful for the heat wave?