Dr. Juls

“There shall be eternal summer in the grateful heart.”

                                      Celia Thaxter

During the past week as I wake up,  I remember it is summer and I can’t help but start to grin.  No longer jumping out of bed racing to make lunches, spin loads of laundry and yell from the garage “We’re going to be late for school!”   It is the “Gone with the Wind” time of year accompanied by the deliberate and quite welcomed privilege of simply saying “I’ll think about it tomorrow.” 

Summer means dusting off the outdoor cushions and planting brightly colored flowers that, if lucky, will survive through Labor Day.   Summer is deciding to head to a Padres game, just to be able to eat a guilt-free hotdog, because it is what you “must do” to keep face as a true baseball fan!  Summer is a lovely balance of “let’s stay up late” with “let’s just relax.”  Yes, I find summer brings a very grateful heart indeed.  

My old friend Webster’s Dictionary describes “grateful” as “pleasing by reason of comfort supplied or discomfort alleviated.”  Consider the implication of this; being grateful is directly related to receiving comfort as well as decreasing discomfort, or distress.   Grateful = Comfort       

Often during the therapy session, we explore the necessity of “soothing” oneself, tapping into an internal dialogue to offer comfort to emotional hurts.  When exploring this concept a client said “Oh, I have to have my own comfort zone.”  Yes, exactly!   When faced with disappointment, frustration, grief, betrayal, fatigue or stress, accessing internal tools to calm and ease our distress is a fundamental ingredient in healing.  Bringing comfort into your heart has a wonderful secondary gain…gratitude.  One leads to the other, and it is a beautiful circular process of gaining calm and healing.