Try These 5 Simple Practices To Feel Grateful To Be Alive.

How to enjoy the ride, part 3.

This is the third and final post in my series, “How to enjoy the ride.” If you missed them, you can find part 1, here and part 2, here.

I am not enjoying the ride this week!

I’m getting ready to go on a three-week road trip to a family wedding. I don’t have a dress to wear. I don’t have time to pack. And I’m feeling under the gun to get this series of posts finished before I leave.

To top it off, my husband and I have contracted some kind of respiratory bug that we cannot seem to shake.

I’ve got my life planned down to the millisecond and I can’t stop coughing!

So, I had to chuckle when I reread the last line of today’s journal entry: “Okay, two hours and 25 minutes to finish my draft on How to enjoy the ride, part 3.”

Think about that for a moment.

Does that sound like someone who should be dishing out advice on how to enjoy the ride? Does that sound like someone slow sipping in her favorite chair, looking out at the gorgeous view, and savoring life?

If you ever think I have this navigating life thing nailed, trust me, I am falling off the horse and climbing back on every damn day.

I’m not talking to you from some blissed-out nirvana after finally unlocking “the secret.” I suspect you need psychedelics for that anyway.

So much of navigating life in a way that brings you joy and a feeling of being fully alive is a mental game.  It is waking up to the experience of your life for brief moments and then slipping back into autopilot.

In this third and final post of this series, I wanted to share five of my favorite reflective practices for more fully experiencing this remarkable ride called life.

1. The “Miracle That is You” meditation.

Imagine throwing a life preserver into any ocean on the planet. Now imagine that in all the oceans in the world there is only one turtle swimming somewhere under the surface. The chances of you being born are the same as the chances of that one turtle poking his head up in the middle of that one life preserver. On the first try.

This is a Buddhist version of the probability that you were born shared by Ali Victor Binazir in a 2021 article entitled, You, the Miraculous: What Are The Chances of Being Born? And Binazir knows, apparently, because he did the actual mathematical calculation.

He goes on to say, “A miracle is an event so unlikely as to be almost impossible.  By that definition, I’ve just shown that you are a miracle.”

When I’m feeling hard done by, it sometimes helps to ponder the lottery win that is my existence.

2. “First Thought” practice.

I once slept on the living room sofa at my parents’ apartment after my mother sprained her knee. She was in her late eighties at the time and my dad was in his early nineties. I woke up the next morning and overheard this exchange between them.

Mom: Moans and says, “Why me Lord?”

Dad: With exuberance, “And good morning to you, too.”

Something about that morning exchange after almost 70 years of marriage made me giggle.

About a month ago, I realized that my own habitual first morning thoughts and words were much more likely to resemble my mother’s than my father’s. I realized I had developed a reflexive way to greet the day that was some variation of “ugh.”

I decided to create a “first thought” practice. I would practice starting my day with the thought, “Thank you for this new day.” It struck me that at my age, new days are not a given and getting a new one is pretty incredible when you think about it.

But here’s the kicker, it’s REALLY tough to engineer your first thought upon waking up.

After working on it for about 30 days, it typically goes something like this.

First thought. “Where am I?”

Second thought. “Why does everything hurt?”

Third thought: “Ugh, it’s a gym day. But everything hurts…” Followed by string of whining thoughts and excuses about how things hurt so much I really should cancel my gym session.

Twentieth thought: “Oh wait! Thank you for this new day. I’m alive. I’m still breathing. I’m going to the gym."

3. “The Last Time” meditation.

If you’ve been reading The Slow Sip for awhile, you may remember this one. This is an ancient stoic practice that asks you to briefly consider the question, what if this was the last time?

What if this was my last piece of chocolate, or the last time I hugged my child, or my last kiss? What would be different in how I feel or act in this moment?

Sound depressing?

In my experience, what happens next is a little flood of appreciation and sometimes a deeper, kinder exchange with someone who matters to me.

For more on how this practice delivered one of the most memorable and meaningful conversations of my life, see my post The Last Time.

4. “The Completion” ritual.

This is a brief journaling exercise to help you wrap up your day. I've found this practice useful to put my day into perspective and set me up for a good night's sleep. When I write things down before I go to bed, it makes it easier to let them go until morning. I can think to myself, there is nothing I can do about this now, so I will let my journal keep this worry while I get some sleep.

You can create your own list of questions, but here are three I’m working with at the moment.

• What was one highlight from today?

• What is one challenge or worry that I can leave here before I go to bed?

• What is one thing I am grateful for today?

For more on completion rituals and three alternative questions, see my post The Shut Down Sequence.

5. “What do you need, sweetheart?”

This one is for those days when you simply feel bad. When there is no exercise, cool tip, or reflective practice of any kind that is going to make you feel better.

This is for days when your existence doesn’t feel like a miracle. When your first thought is, “I am suffering.” When you are in so much pain or grief, you are beyond gratitude.

These are the days when you simply need to greet yourself as you are, with love and compassion. When your wounded soul needs comforting. When you need to acknowledge that you are a beautiful human being who is suffering.

I once had a wise coach, who was also a Buddhist meditation teacher. He taught me, that at times like this, it can help to sit quietly, place my hand over my heart, and ask myself, “What do you need, sweetheart?”

If you can meet yourself with that compassionate question and listen without judgment, it may help quiet all the chatter in your head. And then there will be space for a deeper, truer voice to emerge.

If you found this post useful, I hope you’ll consider forwarding it to a friend or sharing it on social media.