“Learn to relax Charlie Brown.”  In the classic Charles Schulz comic, this was invariably the advice Lucy gave her friend Charlie when he sat in front of her “psychiatry” booth.

It is also what my mother reminded me to do throughout my childhood.

For sure I was wound pretty darn tight.  Life was urgent to me, and to a large extent, it still is.

Learning to relax, slowing down, and enjoying “the moment” are all skills that elude me more than I would like to admit.

And for many years I made it worse for myself by equating relaxation with boredom.   One of my ah-ha moments several years ago . . . When I relax the urgency of life does not dissipate.  In fact, I just enjoy all of the urgent moments much more.

But an ah-ha moment is pointless if we do not follow it up with concerted action to learn and grow from it.

So I thought about and researched what skills or strengths I could practice, ones that keep life urgent and keep me more relaxed to relish it.

Of all of the strengths to cultivate, my favorite is gratitude.  And just by coincidence, here’s how gratitude helped me and those around me this past week.

The details . . .

My husband is not an American citizen.  But now that we are married he is eligible for a green card.  The application process is quite complex and it ends with an in-person interview, an interview I categorized as guilty until proven innocent (presumed guilty of marriage fraud until you demonstrate your love, a love distilled into corny pictures, shared assets, and vacation receipts.)

Oh how I made this so “us against the U.S.”  Funny how cultural change often leaves those benefiting from it the least likely to trust the change.

From the beginning I hated the process.  Lawyers, paperwork, bureaucracy, and suburban government offices . . . oh my!

When we arrived for the interview in a town called “Fairfax” my jaw began to ache.  I was experiencing a physical manifestation of all the stress of the process.

I was so suspicious, cautious, and bothered.

And I expected the interviewer to be a bitter old homophobe.

In fact, she was was kind, patient, curious, and extremely professional.  Within twenty minutes she approved our application.

Done.

And I wept.

Tears to release the stress and strain of years of feeling, but rarely admitting, that I was a second class citizen in my own country (and often too afraid to do anything about it).  Tears of joy that my hubbie and I can make a go of it just like any other couple, gay or straight.  Tears of gratitude that although my country has gotten it wrong many times in its 200 plus years, usually, albeit sometimes painstakingly slowly, we right those wrongs.

So after I settled down I thanked our immigration officer.  She was surprised by my show of emotion.  I explained that I never thought I would live to see the day when “all men are created equal” means gay men too.  I also explained I am an Italian-American, and we cry.

I want to express my sincere and heartfelt gratitude to all Americans who made this era possible: gay, straight, old, young, male, female, liberal and conservative, lawyers (!), and everyone in between.

Learning to relax starts with slowing down long enough to understand why we feel what we feel, regardless of how uncomfortable it may make us in that moment.  Learning to relax becomes a healthy self-fulfilling process if we practice skills like expressing gratitude in front of those who make a positive difference in our lives.  Learning to relax becomes a lifetime habit if we surround ourselves with people who build us up, stretch our imaginations, and challenge us to be more than we ever thought we could be.

I love a paradox.  And here is one I hope we all never forget . . .

When we slow down to practice gratitude we often speed up our chances for success, success in our personal and professional lives.  I am talking about genuine and sustainable success, where we achieve our goals, increase our well-being, and avoid the crippling cycle of emotional and physical burn-out.

So a giant sigh of relief and gratitude.  Learn to relax, it’s urgently worth every effort.

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If you have any questions about coaching please feel free to contact me at scott@kineticcoaching.co, and remember I always offer a complimentary 30-45 minute session to prospective clients to determine if we want to work together.