The Guest House: When Gratitude Meets Our Hardest Moments

Reflections from Elizabeth Stanbro's Zhineng Qigong Practice Session

In our recent practice gathering led by our beloved mingjue healer & teacher, Elizabeth Stanbro, we explored something that sounds simple but often feels impossible: being grateful for what hurts us most.

Elizabeth opened our session with Rumi's beloved poem "The Guest House," translated by Coleman Barks:

This being human is a guest house. Every morning, a new arrival,

a joy, a depression, a meanness.

Some momentary awareness comes as an unexpected visitor.

Welcome and entertain them all.

Even if they are a crowd of sorrows who violently sweep your house empty of its furniture,

still treat each guest honorably.

She may be clearing you out for some new delight.

The dark thought, the shame, the malice meet them at the door laughing and invite them in.

Be grateful for whoever comes.

The poem invites us to welcome every emotion, joy, depression, or even meanness, as an honored guest. Even "a crowd of sorrows who violently sweep your house empty of its furniture" deserves our hospitality, for they may be "clearing you out for some new delight." This isn't about positive thinking or bypassing pain. It's about opening to possibilities beyond our initial triggers and emotional reactions.

The sharing that followed revealed the raw truth: gratitude can feel like torture when we're hurting. One practitioner described a sleepless night wrestling with household tensions. At first, she didn't welcome the guest: she got up, ate, laid back down, and "the damn guest was still there." But somewhere in her daily meditation practice, a voice said, "You know what to do." She consciously surrendered into the field, did a relaxation meditation, and opened energy to everyone in the house. After an hour, she realized what a precious guest that anxiety had been.

Another shared, after struggling with finding gratitude for a painful family situation that she decided to go back to the basics, finding gratitude for the little things: ten working fingers, the ability to see, and a cup of tea. "I think I'm getting this gratitude thing," she said. "I think it's starting to click with me that this is important."

The American Psychology Association recommends exactly this approach: starting with small things (a cup of tea, clean water, having all your fingers) and building from there. It's a habit of mind we can cultivate.

Elizabeth also shared another poem by Rumi related to our theme of tuning into this radical gratitude:

My Worst Habit

My worst habit is I get so tired of winter.

I become a torture to those I am with.

If you're not here, nothing grows.

I lack clarity.

My words tangle up.

Not how to cure bad water; send it back to the river.

Not how to cure bad habits; send me back to you.

When water gets caught in habitual whirlpools, dig a way out through the bottom to the ocean.

There is a secret medicine given only to those who hurt so hard they can't hope.

This poem offers a map for return. Rumi compares bad habits to stagnant water and asks: "How to cure bad water? Send it back to the river. How to cure bad habits? Send me back to you." The river, with its constant, pure, flowing nature, washes away impurities. Returning to the source, whether we call it the Divine, Pure Consciousness, or our essential nature, and allows that pure flow to naturally restructure our negative patterns. Breaking bad habits isn't about willpower. It's a spiritual process of realigning with something larger.

So we practice. Not to feel better immediately. Not to fix anything. But to soften to the reality of our lives instead of fighting it. To create a buffer, a safe space where we can take a breath with our pain. To welcome all our guests, even the ones who terrify us, and trust that something is being cleared out for new delight.

This kind of gratitude practice can feel impossible when we're in the midst of profound anxiety or sadness. As one practitioner noted, sometimes it takes days to come to something beyond the challenging emotions. But it's better than not coming to it at all. And neuroscience supports this practice: gratitude increases dopamine and serotonin, the same chemicals that antidepressants target. The more you practice radical gratitude, the more your brain looks for things to feel good about. You're training yourself to see beauty alongside the terror, not instead of it.

Dr. Tanmeet Sethi, talks about this in her article "Gratitude Made Me Groan Too" and her TEDx talk, Two Words That Can Change Your Life. Dr. Sethi offers a powerful approach to working with practicing gratitude not just for the good things in life, but for our triggers and the most challenging situations we face. Her work beautifully illustrates this principle: gratitude is not bright-siding your pain or pretending it doesn't exist. It's looking at your life, not away from it, seeing it in a bigger way. Gratitude doesn't remove the pain, but it removes the resistance that multiplies our suffering.

Haola to everyone in our community for having the courage to practice gratitude this month. We don't do this work alone, we do it hand and hand in community 💗

Gratitude Made Me Groan Too: https://tanmeetsethimd.substack.com/p/gratitude-made-me-groan-too