The Twelve Tools

by Natti Ronel

  In conclusion, let’s say the Serenity Prayer, quietly and with conviction: “God, grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change… Courage to change the things I can… And the wisdom to know the difference… Amen.”

  TOOL 4

  Gratitude

  We can choose whether to concentrate on what we have or on what we don’t have.

  Let’s start with a brief moment of silence. we can relax in the silence. … Let’s visualize an episode in which something good and pleasing happened to us, preferably unexpectedly. Maybe someone surprised us with a gift, or we hadn’t given too much thought to something and it turned out really well for us, or something of that kind. Let’s probe the memory that’s arisen, see ourselves a moment before the episode, and then during the episode itself, which we remember with pleasure, as if we’re reliving the episode, for a moment. Let’s relive the positive feelings that arose in us. Were we thankful for the unexpected boon? Whether it’s yes or no, let’s feel thankful now, or as followers of the local step-programs say, “grateful for what we have received.” Let’s give free rein to the gratitude in us, with full awareness of the internal shift of emotion. How are we feeling? Let’s enjoy it a little while longer. … Thank you.

  Existential deficiency

  There is no hidden secret in the tools of the Graceway, just practice with intent. The rest happens as if by itself. This is the secret of grace in action.

  When we talk about the Graceway, we are talking about change, about our wish to improve something in our lives. Why should we improve or change, or make progress? There are various reasons for the aspiration to change. For example, when we are aware that we aren’t doing well. In other times, it may seem to us we’re doing just fine, but someone close to us is having a hard time because of us, and maybe we’re not doing that well after all. For example, a man unintentionally hurts a woman who is dear to him, because of his tendency towards critical perfectionism, and he wants to curb the criticism, to avoid hurting her anymore and damaging their relationship.

  Sometimes we want to change something in our lives even when we’re doing well, but we feel uneasy and we want something more from ourselves, maybe a kind of a spiritual development. The Graceway reminds us there is always something we can change, whether large or small, and this is what the tools guide us towards. When we’re not doing so well, abstinence facilitates and even creates the initial change. The Serenity Prayer helps us to decide what to change, and the other tools contribute various perspectives.

  When we examine most of the situations in our lives when we’re not doing so well and we want to change something, we can see that in such situations we have the feeling that something is missing, and we’re looking for something in the world outside of us to fill the deficiency. Let’s think about a common example of anger: I was angry with somebody because he didn’t keep his promise. On the one hand, he didn’t keep his word, I’m in the right, and I’m not in a state of deficiency. This being the case, he is the loser. On the other hand, it’s impossible to deny that anger is a response. Even if anger is considered reasonable, natural and justified, it’s our response to something external, and it expresses an unpleasant situation. Anger expresses our lack of comfort, in other words, our deficiency. What was I missing? It might be that I lost something in my belief that he would keep his promise. In other situations, anger comes when it seems to me that somebody is trying to hurt me. For example, somebody talks to me in a hurtful manner. With his words he’s apparently causing deficiency in my sense of self-respect, and then the anger, and maybe the behavior too, try to resolve the deficiency and replenish me.

  Anger is only one example. In the same measure we could talk about fear -- we’re afraid that something may injure us. The injury points to a situation of possible deficiency. When we’re afraid, we’re already feeling the deficiency and responding to it, even though it hasn’t happened yet and may never happen at all. It’s clear that even situations of lust, strong appetite, instinctive inclination and similar situations, represent states of deficiency -- we lack the satisfaction that something external can apparently give us. Boredom is also a common situation of deficiency and sometimes it develops into a comprehensive boredom with life itself, amounting to a loss of existential meaning, indicating a chronic state of deficiency.

  In relationships, we see experience of deficiency repeating itself. A sad example that I remember was a steady couple who had just had their second child, with joy and love. Shortly after the birth, the husband began to feel he wanted something more than his wife could give him, she was boring him with her concentration on bringing up the children, having given up her personal career. According to him, he still loved her, but he found her company tedious. His boredom was a state of deficiency which had led him to thoughts of separation and the destruction of a stable and loving home. We can think of other examples of deficiency, like those associated with relationships in general -- even between parents and children -- and certainly those between couples where a partner starts to feel taken for granted, and isn’t challenged any more, and then there’s deficiency and an external solution is sought. We also see the experience of deficiency in questions of work and livelihood. For example, someone has amassed a handsome sum of money, but the acquisition doesn’t satisfy her. We can always aspire for more, and from her point of view, the deficiency in peace of mind only grows. Deficiency tends to grow, and it makes no difference what we do to fill it.

  What is the source of the experience of deficiency? On the face of it, there are situations that cause us to experience deficiency. If I haven’t eaten, obviously I’m lacking food, and therefore, I’m hungry. If, regrettably, someone is expelled from his work-place, he will be aware of deficiency in livelihood. We could say that deficiency emanates from the fact that we are really lacking something we need in order to progress.

  As an extension of this, sometimes in a certain encounter with the world we learn that we are short of something. Before this, we didn’t know it was missing, but we were somewhat stuck in life, until our eyes were opened. For example, someone eats in an unhealthy manner and he doesn’t know he’s in a state of malnutrition which will lead to physical problems until someone reveals the deficiency to him. Another case is one where urges supplied by the world cause us to feel loss. For example, a woman is walking in the street when she passes a bakery and catches the pleasant aroma of freshly baked bread and she feels hungry, or she passes a shop where there’s a nice coat in the window and she’s absolutely sure she’s short of a coat and she needs it, or we have sexual urges which create in us a sense of deprivation, and so on. All of these are apparent sources of deficiency, and not objective causes of deficiency.

  If we investigate the sense of deficiency in more depth, we’ll find that almost always, it’s a subjective experience, our response to a given situation and our interpretation of reality. Even in cases where any rational person would say there is deficiency, deficiency is a specific aspect of the situation, and in the situation, there is also an aspect of plenitude. We can choose what we focus on, deficiency or plenitude. Do we understand the situation as one of “there is” or of “there is no?” Only in extreme situations, hunger for example, is there a sense of deficiency so strong that it can dominate all human consciousness and almost paralyze the ability to choose, although even in such cases different people may have different responses. But let’s go back to the normal situations of life. I knew somebody, a wealthy business-man who was married with two children, and he had a regular mistress, known to the public -- and his wife knew of it too, to her sorrow -- while indulging in assorted casual flings with younger women. In business too, his appetite was insatiable -- he made more and more money and his sense of deficiency intensified. What he did to cope with the deficiency was more of the same thing; he continued to fill the void with what he knew, and he experienced only emptiness. On the other hand, there are those who apparently have
much less than we have but they are happier, or at least they’re not feeling deprived.

  The conclusion to be drawn is that the source of the experience of deficiency is in ourselves. In most of the situations where we are experiencing dejection, distress, grief, anger, desire, lust, etc., we are living the deficiency that emanates from us. This is a state of internal existential deficiency, “dressed up” as an external state. The experience of external deficiency is a kind of escape from the experience of internal deficiency. So, what do we usually do? Look for something external to fill the void, and sometimes the filling works for a short time and sometimes it fails completely. The source of the deficiency is internal, and it isn’t in the power of anything external to fill it. For example, if we go out on a “magical” shopping trip, out of a feeling of emotional deficiency, we will perhaps have a feeling of euphoria that will help us to forget the inner deficiency, but this will be quite short-lived, usually ending when we arrive home laden with bags, and euphoria gives way to awareness of the money we’ve wasted, unable to control ourselves. So, what’s to be done?

  The change of gratitude

  Let’s return to the point where we started -- the experience of plenitude. Admittedly, I referred to the experience of plenitude and of gratitude as something external, but we did this to recognize the process. Similarly, the experience of memory is internal. Gratitude is a powerful tool which all at once changes our perception of reality from a situation of deficiency to a situation of “I have.” It is gratitude that fills the internal void, and so it has a strong and positive power over us. We could say in an all-embracing way that gratitude can be the first tool and the first response to most, if not all, of the situations of distress and deficiency that we encounter in our lives.

  You may be asking, with a touch of cynicism, can gratitude satisfy a hungry stomach? What do you think? In my opinion, it depends on the size of the stomach... It’s true, gratitude isn’t food on which you can subsist, but it’s food for the soul, which definitely improves our existence. Even if we’re hungry, gratitude helps us to prevent hunger acting on us in a compulsive way, drawing us into something extreme or knocking us down from an emotional point of view, and then we can deal with hunger in appropriate ways. For example, we can make sure that we have food. In the spirit of the Serenity Prayer, it’s possible to distinguish between the experience of deficiency and the existential need. It’s seldom that the experience of deficiency is linked to existential needs, even when it tells us that it’s an existential need. With the help of gratitude, we have a certain ability to manage our response even when we are faced by physiological deficiency, so it won’t necessarily turn into a situation of frustration and existential deficiency. Gratitude changes our perception of reality, and thereby changes the reality in which we live, which is always our encounter with the world. Gratitude enables us to change what is possible, our response to the encounter with the world. And the world? With gratitude in the head and the heart it is easier to resist its challenges and change what can be changed in it.

  In the last twenty years, gratitude has become a topic of legitimate study in the human and social sciences in a range of areas including health, well-being, recovery from criminality or addiction, and even legal issues. There’s a psychological research tool which measure gratitude among people, and with its help, it was possible to connect gratitude to a wide range of good things that affect different people in different situations, including effects of improving health. The Twelve-Step program and self-help groups for addicts consider gratitude one of the most basic tools for change, from the earliest days of AA. So how is it possible to use this important tool for good?

  The principles of use of the different tools are quite similar. There is daily use, in normal situations, and there is use in states of distress and emotional need. The more we use a specific tool in daily life, the easier it will be to use it at a time of emotional emergency or in time of trouble. Another principle that is regularly repeated is the check at the end of the day -- reviewing the day that has passed in relation to a particular tool. Such a check, “just for today,” contributes to the development of change. After using some of the tools for a substantial period of time, we find that a certain change has come upon us; we have internalized them successfully, and there’s no need to revert to the daily check-up. On the other hand, the tool, “Gratitude” directs us towards the regular daily check-up, preferably from now on for the rest of our lives. Ideally, this should also be the last check that we perform each day, so that we conclude with the marvelous taste of gratitude, the change in proportions that it creates and the smile that it inspires. We should get in the habit of going to sleep with a sense of gratitude, repeating this every night. It is suggested that at the end of every day, we think carefully and make a note of three to five things for which we are grateful. Even if we’re too tired for the daily self-examination, gratitude is something that shouldn’t be jettisoned, under any circumstances. In every self-appraisal that we perform and in every situation where we activate any one of the tools, let’s activate gratitude as well and check ourselves out with its help.

  After we get used to thinking about gratitude, it will be easy for us to use it in the course of the day. There are two possibilities here. The first is this: from time to time, we stop the flow of the day for the wink of an eye and practice gratitude. For example, we remember what we wrote the night before. Memory does something to us and deepens our gratitude, until it rises by itself from our inner being.

  The second possibility is to activate gratitude in times of distress or emotional need, and the important thing is to remember gratitude the moment we feel ourselves being drawn into a quasi-compulsive experience of deficiency of some kind. When the feeling of deficiency dominates our consciousness, gratitude is like a refreshing stream which creates immediate change and brings us back to another frame of mind. Activation of gratitude in moments of distress becomes possible if we practice gratitude on a regular basis, until it becomes second nature to us.

  What to be grateful for?

  At first it seems that everything that comes to mind is eligible for gratitude, the essential thing being that there’s an experience of gratitude which fills for a moment the gap created by existential deficiency. This is certainly true in the first stages of change. Gratitude itself is a change in our response, in accordance with the Serenity Prayer. In these stages, we can seek out and record, the things in our lives for which we feel grateful, and these things may sound utterly banal. They can be small things, like the present that we receive on a certain day, or they can be bigger issues in our lives. They can be things for which we are responsible ourselves, for example, gratitude for my response today, when I spoke in a conciliatory way instead of getting angry with someone. The very awareness of gratitude, which tells us that we’re not taking these simple things for granted, already constitutes beneficial change in our attentiveness and in our response.

  Subsequently we can take the concept of gratitude further. When it is connected with what we have received today, or in general, what life or the world has given us, or is giving us, it still ignores the source of the feeling of existential deficiency. Such gratitude expresses thoughts of self-centeredness and dependence on what we are receiving. Making progress with gratitude guides us toward giving it greater freedom from what we have received today or in general, until it turns into an entirely liberated feeling, a quality of freedom from dependence which is an experience of plenitude in its own right. Such an experience can gradually remove the sense of existential deficiency.

  Gratitude adds to us a quality of modesty. From the simple fact that we feel a deep sense of thankfulness and gratitude, it emerges that we’re not attributing our sense of plenitude to our own strength and wisdom, and we don’t see it as a self-explanatory right that belongs to us by our very nature. Even though plenitude freed from dependence is a basic experience that all people are entitled to
enjoy, we are thankful that it exists, and we appreciate it as grace given to us.

  In our human nature, we can be an entity that is full in its own right, liberated from dependence, which can go beyond itself into the world, and give of itself with joy and love. The way to awareness of our being, liberated from dependence, is long indeed, but along the way we begin to sense its radiance. Gratitude reflects this radiance and also reinforces it, while preserving the humble perception that all we have shouldn’t be taken for granted.

  Grateful to whom?

  First, gratitude can be directed towards anyone who has done something good for us and we recognize it -- friends, spouses, parents, a stranger who helped us today, anyone. We appreciate the contribution they have made on our behalf, which isn’t taken for granted. Even if they give us something because they’re just doing their job -- a shop-keeper for example, offering friendly service -- with the aid of gratitude, we see them as human beings who have done something good and not just as objects that are supposed to serve us. Seeing the other as a human worthy of gratitude helps us to move out of our self-centeredness and come closer to others and to a realistic perception of humility. When we give thanks for what others have done for us, we also learn how to allow others to behave in a way appropriate to the grace that we want to receive from them.

  Second, we can be grateful even to ourselves, especially at the beginning of a change. There is in this gratitude a basis for a certain self-centeredness, but in a paradoxical way, it causes its diminution. At the beginning of the way of change, especially if we’re in a state of distress, which is connected to deep feelings of existential deficiency, with an extra component of low self-esteem, gratitude to ourselves constitutes a refreshing change. Humility, which develops gradually alongside gratitude, brings us subsequently to leave ourselves behind as objects of gratitude, and direct it towards someone else.