Intentional Gratitude is an Absolute Game-changer.

In January 2018 I was extremely excited, I was 40 and six weeks away from marrying an incredible man.

I was in the process of trying to write an inspiring speech at the time for Toastmasters on how to get back up again but I wasn’t succeeding at remembering how I had done that? However, there could be no doubt that I had.

I had had 12 lots of neurosurgery, had come through radiotherapy, I had been so very sick for 10 years. I had only been well enough to be up from bed for about an hour of each day. I had gone from that to finding my singing voice again, and recording my first album in 2013.

I had got off a decade of being on high doses of morphine for chronic pain. I had lost 50kg (after gaining 40kg in 10 months, following being put on steroids after 3x neurosurgery in 2004).

I had overcome all the odds stacked against me, along with the side-effects from the 12 lots of neurosurgery.

However the problem was that I had no memory of how I had done these things? The long term side effect of all the neurosurgery was that i t so greatly reduced my (short term) memory.

Then in January 2015 I attended a personal development seminar and met a man who I connected with in a way that I had never connected with a man before. In June 2015 we did the neurolinguistic programming course, ‘The Lightning Process’, together and it dramatically transformed my life. I went from only being able to walk 100 meters, due to pain, to training for & completely loving my first two half marathons. Then on February 8, 2018, 3 days before my 3rd half marathon, 6 weeks before our wedding, everything changed.

On this day I awoke feeling extremely strange. I was living with my parents at the time and remember walking down the hallway saying to them that I was going back to bed. With my father being a senior citizen, he was well aware of the symptoms of a stroke and followed me back to my bedroom saying “Gabrielle the word FAST has been given to us as an acronym for strokes. It stands for F for face, A for if your arm is slumped, and S stands for if for your speech has been effected. Gabrielle, you have slurred speech, and the final letter is T for time. Time is everything here Gabrielle and we need to get you to the local medical centre immediately”.

I tried to say not to be so ridiculous and that I was fine but my father wouldn’t take no as an answer and we rapidly headed to the local medical centre that immediately sent me to hospital. There was a huge amount I was trying to process with all of this but the main thing going through my head was “How can this be happening (and especially with it being only 6 weeks before my wedding)?”.

Well, sure enough, God answered my prayers and my speaking voice returned for me to give my wedding vows and give a wee speech at the wedding, as well as walk down the aisle unaided without stumbling with my (equally unstable!) father. Little did I know though that this was only the beginning of a new phase of my life. Sure, a lot of women would say that after getting married but no, that is not what I mean here.

We had an extraordinary honeymoon on a cruise around New Zealand. It was incredibly spectacular. However, it wasn’t until we returned that the real cognitive battle began. I have now come to see that these mini strokes/ mini brain bleeds are actually very different to most strokes. Strokes often affect the body badly, down one side. Mine however actually occurred within the brain and affected my brain’s cognitive function.

Then in September 2018 the second of these, still completely bizarre and unsettling, mini strokes and brain bleeds occurred. This time however, I was left with completely different symptoms. My ability to balance at all was greatly affected. I required two crutches to get to the toilet, with supervision, to ensure I didn’t fall. It was the greatest challenge. Once again my husband and I were perplexed as to why this had happened again? And why had this happened again so soon after the last stroke? It was extremely uncertain and perplexing.

Not too long after this second stroke I went to an appointment with my neurologist. I had seen my oncologist many times but he really just assessed my scans as to whether a stroke had occurred, whether the brain tumour I had had for 19 years had reoccurred. He never went into what was causing them. However, the neurologist said something at my first appointment with her that so completely changed my perspective on these events happening. She told me that these mini strokes occurring were in fact a long term side effect of radiotherapy to the brain. A side effect that very few people had the privilege of living long enough to experience. Wow! This was a complete game changer in my mind

From this moment on I realised something. I realized that in fact I actually needed to be grateful for these mini strokes. They were in fact a privilege. I mean sure, it had been devastating to have these two mini strokes/ brain bleeds occur when I had been so incredibly well for three years. It had been extremely challenging to have been three days off my third half marathon when the first one occurred. It had been traumatic to have the first mini stroke to occur just 6 weeks before my wedding. And it was initially greatly upsetting to be told that these would continue to occur. But after hearing why they were occurring just led me to such a sense of gratitude.

Having that gratitude come in literally changed my world. Everything in my life was so very much easier. Challenging times no longer were nearly as hard. Holding on to that sense of gratitude, and that knowledge that I was privileged to be having these occur really changed things for me.

You could perhaps think “well it’s easy for you, you had cancer and recovered. You’ve got something obvious to be grateful for. I have never had cancer and have nothing to be grateful for”? But don’t you see? The whole thing is here that if you have never had the diagnosis of cancer, my goodness, you immediately have something to be so incredibly grateful for.

I was lucky enough to be diagnosed with a brain tumor at the age of 17. Some may say unfortunate enough, but I am so grateful now for that young diagnosis as it led me to accept young that we are actually do not have control over everything that happens in our lives. In Psalm 139 verse 16 of the Bible it says that every day of our life was written in God’s book before one day of it came to be. I learned that truth young, and that this occurring was no surprise to God. I am just so incredibly grateful that I learned that young.

You see the reality is that we all have something to be grateful for. If you have never had a cancer diagnosis, then wow! You seriously have something to be grateful for. It’s just that sometimes we need to dig, as such, to find it. And when we can focus our minds on that, it takes our mind off thinking about whatever negative thoughts or memories we might be ruminating over.

For me, gratitude kept my mind away from any “poor myself” thoughts when I had the last two, of four four mini-strokes over the past two years. Sure, the first two were challenging, when I didn’t know why they were occurring. However, focusing on all that I had to be grateful for in life moved my thoughts rapidly away from any self pity and into gratitude..

I truly believe that when gratitude is your go-to mental state there is no room for your brain to head down the “poor myself” pathway. I had chosen to never go down that pathway since my brain tumor diagnosis, but I felt to not do so even more after these last two strokes occurred.

And another tip. I strongly recommend that you keep something with you that reminds you to be grateful. For me it’s a photo from 2006 taken 2 years after I had been put on steroids. I had gained 40kg in 10 months after being put on steroids after 3 lots of neurosurgery in 2004. It was a truly horrific, in fact awful, time that I am now so incredibly grateful for now. During that time of being morbidly obese, strangely, I learned to love myself as I was. It was also during this time that I fell in love with endorphins, experienced through exercise. They are still something that I adore. I do in fact now do two workouts a day to increase the amount of time that I can do overall and increase that endorphin flow. I absolutely adore it.

However, as a female with hormones, I too can sink into days where I turn on myself and start to become completely perfectionist and not kind to myself about my appearance. Keeping a wee photo of myself from my biggest years , 14 years ago, is like a slap on the face. It reminds me to shut the negative voice in my head up! To remember just how much healthier and happier I am now. It reminds me to be grateful. I can’t recommend strongly enough just having a wee item, be it written, or a photo, from your past that reminds you just how far you have come and that you actually have a lot to be grateful for.

This may be just my thinking but I truly believe that it has made the hugest difference in my life and that it would do the same in yours if you tried it? So I challenge you, spend some time today thinking about what you have in your life that you could be grateful for? Think about this, actually dwell on it, and it could completely change your entire perspective on life.

I believe that actually being intentional in your gratitude, so more than just saying “thanks” when the waitress brings you a drink, actually being really intentional about it, really dwelling on it, has the power to completely transform your thinking, and your life. Try it and you see how it will affect everything.