Happily Ever After: The Life-Changing Power of a Grateful Heart Page 3

  As William James, a psychologist and author, once said, “The greatest discovery of my generation is that human beings can alter their lives by altering their attitudes of mind.” By choosing an optimistic attitude, I am able to see the exact same living room in an entirely different light. In forcing myself to look past the superficial layer of chaos, I am shown a much deeper meaning of abundance and joy. That messy living room is a testament that healthy, happy, energetic children live in a home full of things they love, with people they love and imaginations that can take them anywhere.

  Recognizing what lies beneath a dull task can turn it into an expression of appreciation, if we just remember to see the world with a grateful heart.

  Don’t get me wrong—I have days when the bright side is not on my radar and I would rather wallow in my bad mood.

  I did it when my parents got divorced.

  I did it when my cousin died at a young age.

  I did it when Alex broke my heart.

  Sometimes you just have to let sadness or anger or frustration into your present to eventually put it in the past. But be careful not to let those feelings linger.

  Had I been the one to receive the final rose, I may have been spared lots of sleepless nights and even more tears after my initial heartbreak, but Ryan and I probably never would have met and the trajectory of my life wouldn’t have included Maxwell Alston or Blakesley Grace Sutter. The mere thought that they might never have existed sends shivers down my spine. It also makes me that much more thankful for my heartache. From the bottom of my heart, thank you, Alex Michel.

  These days I allow myself to feel the pain, but not to immerse myself in it. I try to get past it as quickly as I can and get on with the good stuff. As Alex Tan, a political activist from Singapore, once said, “Perhaps our eyes need to be washed by our tears once in a while, so that we can see life with a clearer view again.”

  By recognizing my daily blessings, I consciously know that I have much to be grateful for. I have much to get out of bed for and smile for and keep chugging along for.

  We all do.

  SHINE YOUR LIGHT

  According to a report in the Wall Street Journal, being grateful gives us increased energy, optimism, social connections, and happiness. Depression, envy, greed, and addiction take a backseat when gratitude gets behind the wheel. And who doesn’t want to earn more money, sleep better, fend off infection, and live with more smiles?

  If you’re anything like me, you want to be happy. You want to take care of the people around you. You want to make the world, especially your little sliver of it, a better place.

  If you’re a realist like me, however, you also know that’s a tall order. “Happy” isn’t something you can just order off a dinner menu. Taking care of people is a lot of work. And making the world a better place? Sometimes I feel like I’m too tired to yawn.

  So where do we start? How do we change the world while we’re changing diapers, trying to stay fit, putting in long hours at the office, making sure our family is well fed, and getting everyone’s socks squeaky clean?

  What I’ve learned is that all these things—personal happiness, a stronger community, a better world—can and should be accomplished one thought at a time, one word at a time, one action so minor it may go unnoticed at a time. We can’t light up the whole world, each of us, every minute, but we can decide to project optimism and light instead of pessimism and darkness. Our actions, words, and attitudes have a sizeable impact. They can either open the floodgates of global happiness or destroy our planet, one human feeling at a time.

  Think about the last time someone smiled at you. Did you smile back, at least inside? Did that simple positive gesture make you want to pay it forward?

  How about the last time someone was rude to you? Did it dampen your mood and make you feel like giving it right back to them in spades? It’s human instinct to want to make the person who hurt you hurt even worse, especially if their insensitivity or cruelty was for no good reason.

  What I have a hard time with, personally, are the unnecessary criticisms that come from cowards who anonymously hide behind their computers. I’ve seen comments about me like, “Dammit Trista Sutter is fugly. WTF happened to her? Motherhood? Dang,” or “I think she’s a disgusting mother,” or this all-time favorite, “Ryan dump that broad, a garbage can would do you better.” I’m usually reminded by sweet supporters (including my husband, family, and friends) that the haters are just that . . . people filled with hate. They don’t know me, and most important, they don’t deserve my attention. I will admit, though, that they’re hard to ignore.

  More valuable than the temporary satisfaction I would get from seeing these meanies brought to some kind of justice is the lesson I’ve learned. This quote by minister Harry Emerson Fosdick describes it perfectly: “Hating people is like burning down your own house to get rid of a rat.” Their nasty comments made me want to react. I wanted to hurt them as deeply as they had hurt me. By doing that, though, I wouldn’t have made anything better. In fact, I would’ve hurt myself by giving in to the darkness and added fuel to their bully fire.

  Now I try to hurl humor and virtual hugs instead of wallops and insults. On social media, I try to act and react with words that speak to objective facts and not subjective opinions, especially when it comes to people’s physical appearance or sacred relationships.

  Am I perfect? Of course not. I have moments of weakness on Twitter when it’s easy to let my diarrhea of the mouth seep through in a post. (Sorry . . . disturbing visual.)

  We are all allowed our bad days, but hopefully the good ones far outnumber the bad and the bad aren’t bad enough to cause pain.

  If you want to live in a joyful world, an easy place to start is in your own life. By recognizing that gratefulness leads to more gratitude, graciousness leads to more grace, and appreciation leads to more appreciating, we add microcosms of goodness to our universe.

  If you are light, you have the potential to create more light. As teacher Erin Majors said, “A candle loses nothing by lighting another candle.”

  AMAZING GRACE

  On the happiness wheel of life, there are many moving parts. Everyone has a unique wheel, dependent on their values, priorities, morals, and dreams, but without the necessary elements of gratitude and grace, the wheel can have a difficult time turning.

  Clearly a book titled Happily Ever After: The Life-Changing Power of a Grateful Heart would indicate that gratitude is essential to happiness, but you may wonder why grace is necessary. In the most difficult of times, gratitude and its path to happiness would be blanketed by darkness if not for the light of grace.

  Here’s a story describing just that, a story I first heard from my friend Ethan Zohn. With a portion of his winnings as sole survivor on Survivor: Africa, Ethan started an organization called Grassroot Soccer that promotes HIV/AIDS education throughout Africa. He met the Biehl family through his charity work, and I’m personally thankful he did so that I would come to know their story.

  Amy Biehl was a twenty-six-year-old graduate of Stanford University who traveled to South Africa to study in Cape Town as a Fulbright Scholar. Her goal: end apartheid, or at least be part of the solution. On August 25, 1993, she was driving a friend home to the Gugulethu township when she encountered a group of four enraged African men. They saw the pale color of her skin and pelted her car with bricks and rocks, eventually breaking her windshield and violently hitting her in the head. They proceeded to drag her from her car as she begged for her life. They stoned her and stabbed her and ignored her desperate pleas for mercy. They did not stop until she was dead.

  Those men were the exact contradiction of grace, or “undeserved mercy,” as a friend of mine once defined it. The Biehls, however, became its true personification.

  Although the perpetrators were sentenced to eighteen years in prison, they were each pardoned by South Africa’s Truth and Reconciliation Commission and set free after only four short years. At the hearing, not onl
y did Amy’s father, Peter Biehl, shake the hands of the men who had brutally murdered his daughter, but he stood up and said, “The most important vehicle of reconciliation is open and honest dialogue. We are here to reconcile a human life which was taken without an opportunity for dialogue. When we are finished with this process, we must move forward with linked arms.” And move forward they did, not only with linked arms, but also with hearts full of grace.

  They believed so much in Amy’s work in South Africa that they started the Amy Biehl Foundation (AmyBiehl.org), which gives back to the very community that her killers called home. And to top that off, they forgave Ntobeko Peni and Mzikhona “Easy” Nofemela, two of her attackers (the others deciding to live a life of continued destruction), hiring them to work for the foundation and give back in Amy’s name.

  As reported by CNN in December 2004, Amy’s mother, Linda, said, “Doing justice to Amy’s legacy requires not just addressing her murderers, but also the inequalities, emotions, and difficulties that motivated Amy to help people such as Peni. He’s a part of a very positive society in South Africa, raising a two-year-old child to participate in a multiethnic, multigender society. To me, that’s a great joy and happiness. I’ve been privileged to have that opportunity.”

  I cannot imagine a better story of grace. A story that perfectly illustrates how deciding to live in light and unconditionally offer forgiveness can truly allow us to open the doorway to gratitude and eventual happiness. As psychiatrist Elisabeth Kübler-Ross once said, “People are like stained-glass windows. They sparkle and shine when the sun is out, but when the darkness sets in, their true beauty is revealed only if there is light from within.”

  Never having met or spoken to the Biehls, I don’t personally know them, but after discovering their story, I know their example of a pure and beautiful inner light is one I will never forget.

  THANK YOU, PLEASE?

  Whatever your name, title, or reputation, the contributions you make in your life probably don’t always make front-page news or earn a Nobel Prize. They may not even come up during conversations at the dinner table or result in a simple pat on the back. In fact, they may end up being entirely overlooked. Does that mean they don’t matter? Of course not! They matter. You matter.

  As I am a stay-at-home-and-work mom, my life is filled with completing tasks that often go unnoticed. Is it my job? Yes. But just because it’s a “job” doesn’t mean that praise or prizes for little successes aren’t more than welcome.

  Everyone deserves admiration and validation, whether your day entailed doing three loads of laundry, paying the bills, and playing Candy Land or you heroically saved a woman on the brink of cardiac arrest and then got a family to safety after their car spun out of control in the middle of a blizzard.

  A big celebration or a trip to your favorite jewelry store may be warranted during extra-special victories, but shockingly enough, I would take a bushel of the little things over a lavish gift any day of the week and twice on Sunday. To me, the jolt of positive energy I get when my husband reaches out to hold my hand or considerately makes me a cup of chai tea because he knows my mommy brain could use the help while I work is what gets me through the daily grind—and I need all the help I can get!

  Will I cherish the lavish mama-bear necklace from Vail’s Golden Bear that Ryan bought me as a “push present” after Blakesley was born? Always!

  Will I forever remember how he whisked me away on a surprise trip to the Grand Tetons without my having to do anything but pack? That I will. But the things I’ll remember most are the simple yet thoughtful cards he gave me leading up to and during our adventure.

  Without the little things, I wouldn’t have the staircase I need to reach the big things. I just need to be careful to not expect too much. What I may appreciate in terms of acclaim or reward may not be a very practical or customary expression of thanks for the people in my life.

  Take my kids, for example. They are usually very sweet and loving, but as a preschooler and kindergartener, they don’t have the capacity in their still-developing brains to fully grasp the efforts behind the commonplace occurrences in their lives. It may look like Fox in Socks by Dr. Seuss is a breeze to get through or that the smiley faces created out of the food on their lunch plates just happened by chance, but that’s not the case—at least in our house. I could very easily choose a book without sixty-one pages of tongue-twisters (parents: you should try it! It’s not easy) to read them at bedtime or dish up their lunchtime eats in a nondescript way, but where’s the fun in that? It definitely takes a little more effort, but feeding their minds and their bodies is not only my job, it’s my pleasure. Hopefully, someday giving compliments will be second nature to them, and I may hear “good job, Mommy” or “thank you for the thoughtful touch, Mom” without encouragement from their dad. Until then (or until they’re too cool for their mother’s cutesy ways), the pride I get from the resulting ear-to-ear grins that splash across their faces will be enough.

  And to be clear, it’s not that I dream of constant, around-the-clock acknowledgment. I can’t even imagine how annoying it would be if Ryan followed me around everywhere thanking me for picking up a fallen sticker or wiping off a spot on the refrigerator door handle. Authentic appreciation is one thing. Obligatory appreciation is another. Not only would I go bonkers, but the sincerity of any gratitude I could receive would be diluted and felt as though it was expressed just for the sake of expression. I would rather feel genuinely appreciated while performing everyday tasks and in more exceptional moments than disingenuously recognized for everything under the sun.

  So, go out, watch, and listen for that fine line of praise. Appreciate the little things, celebrate the big things, and know that you matter.

  SAY IT FORWARD

  “I appreciate you.”

  It’s one of the most profound things someone can say to you. If you’ve ever heard the words, and I hope you have, you know what it feels like. It’s a warm smile from within . . . no force required. It means you matter, that your existence is a blessing—and there is no better feeling than that. Mother Teresa said it best: “There is more hunger for love and appreciation in this world than for bread.”

  I truly understood the importance of genuine expressions of thanks when I came face-to-face with the idea that my former manager considered me an unappreciative mooch. I was at the Lodge at Rancho Mirage in Palm Springs, California, where I was counting down the handful of days left until I exchanged vows with the man of my dreams. Getting ready for the night’s festivities, I had the television tuned to Entertainment Tonight. I heard my name, but not in a complimentary way. The speaker was a famous lawyer I had never met, and he was on national television bashing me in front of millions of people watching at home.

  To make a long story short, the man I had trusted to act as my manager felt he was entitled to a larger commission than what we had verbally agreed to in regard to the compensation Ryan and I would receive to have our wedding televised. I disagreed, paid him what he had agreed to over the phone, and ended our managerial relationship. I then found out during a taping of Larry King Live, two days before this lawyer’s appearance on ET, that he was suing me. With only a verbal agreement between us, I resentfully prepared myself to go through the motions and hired a lawyer of my own.

  In a suit I later filed with the California labor commissioner, I successfully proved that he wasn’t entitled to any more of my earnings and, in fact, owed me money, but that was months down the road. Days before what was to be the happiest day of my life, this fancy attorney wasn’t only insinuating that I owed my former manager money, but he decided to add insult to injury and call me ungrateful. The dagger in my heart was almost too much to bear.

  Having been in the public eye for several years at that point, I knew I could handle a lot of name-calling, but for someone to say that I was anything but appreciative destroyed me, and I have a feeling my ex-manager knew it would.

  The lawyer mentioned that my forme
r manager had gone above and beyond the call of duty in arranging for me to temporarily call Beverly Hills home when I first arrived, and that when my time there came to an end, I hadn’t given him even the courtesy of a thank-you. I thought, “This guy is lying to America!” and I hated him for it. But even though I was convinced that he couldn’t be telling the truth, I couldn’t help but wonder: Had I actually done what he was so frustratingly accusing me of? Had I failed to profusely thank my manager and the owner of the house that I had been housesitting for helping provide me with such an appreciated opportunity? There was no way . . . or was there?

  I had always known how important it is to be vocal about being thankful, but this experience etched the lesson so deeply in my skull that I would be forever changed. As the composer and producer Bernice Johnson Reagon said, “Life’s challenges are not supposed to paralyze you, they’re supposed to help you discover who you are.” From that day forward, I knew who I wanted to be: a woman who was so outwardly grateful that no one could ever question it. If I was ever on the receiving end of a kindness or generosity, I would do my best to take the time and effort to literally and liberally say thank you both in person and by way of simple and sincere notes or gifts of gratitude.

  When the time came, our wedding went off without a hitch (although I could’ve done without the helicopters!), but I will never forget the accusations. After that experience, I’ll always remember that if you don’t say thank you loud enough, people remember . . . and they tell other people. In my case, lots and lots of other people.

  Expressing your gratitude isn’t an extra. It’s everything.

  But as is the case with most things in life, how you say thank you is less about the size of the gesture and more about its quality.

  Appreciation can be as loud as the winning team’s cheering section at a football game or as subtle as the glimmer in the eye of a baby getting swaddled after a warm bath. My personal favorite expression of appreciation is a hug (yes, I’m a hugger). I’m also a fan of the old-school tradition of writing formal thank-you notes, even if it takes me months to do so (and it usually does). After all, thank-you notes aren’t just pretty pieces of paper full of meaningless writing. They are symbols of appreciation that put gratitude into words.