Free-fall into Gratitude

     There are many things one must do along the way but one thing I would never expect myself to do is free-fall from an airplane. I recall the terror at attempting to leap off the high board at the local swimming pool as a kid. However, the notion of a free-fall came to me quite unexpectedly as I was driving home one evening. What seemed even more astonishing was its connection to gratitude, an attitude with which I have never been very intimate.
     It happened on my way home from the weekly meditation group. I was lumbering along the highway, my truck banging out evidence of my neglect of needed repairs, and I realized that I was experiencing a warm and happy moment – one might even say joyous. In search of an explanation, I looked back over my day and by all standards, it seemed to have been a near perfect one.
     I woke up without the sinus headache that aroused me several hours earlier and threatened, at the very least, to ruin my morning. Two Aleve from the bedside table however, were to be congratulated on a job well done and the flu-like symptoms, which had been harassing me for the past five days, seemed to have disappeared completely. Subsequently I received an email from a friend who said he enjoyed a piece of writing I sent him, and wanted to discuss it further over breakfast later in the week. Another email from a female friend ignited hopes of further “befriending” in the future and my trip to the doctor earlier in the day revealed no cause for alarm. I remembered to tape a new and exciting television show and would be able to watch it later in the evening, and after attending one of my favorite evening meetings, I received a call about some part-time work for later in the week.
     This retrospective flash through the finer points of my day further filled me with what I am at a loss to adequately describe, other than to say it was an experience of warm joy. It was at this moment that the thought of free-falling into gratitude tiptoed across my mind, and I was able to avoid the swift and treacherous flight into grandiose thinking that had been my pattern for so many years.
     As a college student on the way to class one day, I recall picking up a discarded, half-empty book of matches at the start of a 15 minute commuter train ride. And before the train stopped I went from zero to planning, and then owning a fleet of trucks, to service the locksmith needs of a tri-county area; simply by reading an advertisement on the inside cover. Always plagued by repetitive flights into grandiose imaginings, I was never able to capture the essence of living….being present.
     Always quick to make a reasonable plan, I was seldom able to execute it. With equal speed, I would think myself out of any constructive action by identifying all the risks, real or imagined, that might separate me from my dream. My insecurities reached out in time and space, to initiate a mental feeding frenzy in which any one of a multitude of fears, would destroy my will to power.
     On this particular evening however, I experienced something different; a sense of leaning back into what could be described as a cushion of warmth; and being grateful for the opportunity to do so. The warmth in my midsection expanded into an even softer, warmer cushion which seemed to be a "feeding of my soul."
      I was able to recognize that it was my free-fall, away from fearful ideations and into the present moment, that nurtured the experience - and allowed it to expand within me. I was fully aware that the end of my euphoria was inevitable, yet at the same time I rested peacefully in the present. At peace in the present moment, running neither forward nor back, I was sustained by it.
     When the inevitable swing of the emotional pendulum did swing back toward stasis, I was neither sad nor hurt. Prepared for the change, I received support and affirmation still, from the shadow of that moment of my “free-fall into gratitude.”