The Healing Garden: A Place Of Peace

Gardening For The Soil Gardening For The Soul

Finding Solace In A Changing World

ISBN 0-9733085-0-8

By Gwen Nyhus Stewart

Chapter 4 Gratitude

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In this chapter:

Ø Existential Despair

Ø Making Peace with Ourselves

Ø Perception – What You See Is What You Get

Ø Practical Steps to Changing Attitudes

Ø What is Gratitude?

Ø Gratitude as a Way of Life

Ø Practical Steps to Living Gratitude

Ø Remember

"You cannot be grateful and unhappy at the same time." - Unknown

Do you get up in the morning determined to have a good day and before you know it, you

find yourself feeling overwhelmed, stressed out, and that you can't wait for the day to be over

so you can rest? Do you feel like you are existing from day to day rather than living a life of joy? Do you ever ask yourself, "Is this all there is, and if it is, do I want it?" If so, you are

not alone."

Thousands of people just like you are asking these same questions. These are the people who thought that if they just did it right everything would be okay. Right meant - getting married, having children, buying the starter house, moving to the larger house and two car garage, and so on including getting a good education so you could make lots of bucks. You keep running to keep up with this picture of success and yet you feel so empty. The

emptiness feels like isolation, loneliness, and exhaustion. I call this emptiness 'existential despair.'

EXISTENTIAL DESPAIR

Existentialism is a philosophy centred upon the analysis of existence and stressing the freedom, responsibility, and usually the isolation of the individual. Despair means utter loss of hope or a cause of hopelessness. 'Existential despair' then means the painful discrepancy between what

is, and what should be, between one's perceptions, and one's suppositions.

This sense of loss or the absence of meaning in one's life is the common denominator of all forms of emotional distress and has been identified as the 'modern day illness.' Pain, disease, disappointment, loss, failure, alienation, or merely boredom - all lead to this feeling that life is meaningless. 'Existential despair' exists when we buy the myth that having the external

goodies creates success and happiness. We do and buy everything we can to fill the 'hole in

our soul' except the one thing that really matters - going within and making peace with

ourselves.

This is the beginning of the fourth chapter of the book The Healing Garden: A Place Of

Peace by Gwen Nyhus Stewart. There's lots more information online, but if you've read this

much, you'll undoubtedly find the book of great value!