Why is gratitude hard?

I have not brought gratitude into my practice, my day, my routines as I intended to back in January.

Watched a cute video about new years eve resolutions that suggested that instead of annual goals we create annual themes.  So far I've lost that theme, but I could put that up on my mission spreadsheet as a way of re-directing myself.

But first if I am going to make gratitude a practice, I need to recognize that it's hard. That grievance is my habit loop, not gratitude. Grievance collecting is something I was raised on, with two parents who were union officers. In times of stress this is what wakes up in me, this pattern of collecting all the slights and injustices real and imagined.

Can I train my heart to recognize how it closes around my vulnerability and how it can open to a stronger energy?  And how do I keep to that training? 

I can commit to the algorithm of Padmasambhava's Natural Liberation.  First awareness of our disillusionment,  then awareness of the preciousness of life. Bring that 1-2 in every practice. 

New trauma

A few days ago my mother fractured her hip.  This is going to put some old traumas back into play.  She's in the hospital and I don't know what the next three months hold for her, or the next year. A good percentage of seniors never recover from this.  My father, who has been struggling with depression for the last few years is in deep distress.

Widening my window of stress around this might be a way of repairing old wounds, and going though some psychic rehabilitation myself. I feel the stress manifesting as cravings and a desire to escape into Netflix. I hope I spend that time instead developing a stronger sense of the preciousness of this life, and this awareness that we all have access to.

What would this rehabilitation look like? Maybe it is me make the intention to follow that bardo course.  To begin to prepare for my parents' death and to help them to prepare for death.  Hospitals are a profound place of disillusionment  and reminder of our transience.

May I be compassionate towards my parents. May they both live as long as they need to. May they both connect with the awareness that is their birthright.