Giving thanks for abundance is sweeter than the abundance itself. Rumi
Why is Gratitude important to me?
Recognizing what I’m grateful for has been an important daily routine for me since my late 20s. I spend time each day thinking about and recording what I’m grateful for – both big and small things. I also try to remember to express my gratitude to other people and recognize all the gifts I’ve been given.
I end my day by listing 5 things I’m grateful for from the day in my gratitude journal – anything from seeing a kid learning to ride her bike, getting to know someone better, a podcast that inspired me, a foggy dawn morning. Sometimes one of my gratitude items is ‘I got through the day’. During the day I also post three things to Happyfeed, the gratitude app on my phone, which I’ve used for 5 years. I like Happyfeed because I can include photos of what I’ve seen and experienced during the day, and I can also look back at what I was grateful for on that day each year. It’s a great visual reminder of all the positive things in my life.
Recording what I’m grateful for has been important for my mental health. It’s opened me up to all the wonderful things I have in my life and helped me notice the good in the world. There’s been so much negative news about what’s happening in our country and around the world. I have found that focusing on gratitude makes it easier to deal with the pain and sadness. Being grateful isn’t about pretending that everything is fine or trying to put a happy spin on things. I’ve had many days when my biggest gratitude was getting through a really hard day, or being able to cry. I’ve even been grateful that I can acknowledge how shitty things are right now.
I found the more I thought about what I was grateful for, the more I realized how many other things were behind that gratitude. I began to see all of the interconnections in my life and that deepened and expanded my gratitude practice.
Attending a protest the other day made me think about all of the things I take for granted that I should be grateful for every day. The fact that I live in a country where, at least at the moment, I can attend a peaceful protest. That I always have a safe, warm, dry place to live, I have plenty of food, I have people who love me, I grew up in a loving, secure, supportive environment, I had teachers who understood me,I had a learning style that was conducive to modern teaching methods, I was raised with the assumption that I was a good person and I was intelligent and could take care of myself. I lived in a neighborhood where I looked like everyone around me and never had to worry about how I would be treated by others (outside of the usual middle school mean girls) I was able to afford higher education both right out of high school when my parents supported me and later in my 50s when I had the financial reserves to finance my graduate education, I could raise my kids in a similar atmosphere, I’ve never really wanted for anything – physically, emotionally, spiritually, intellectually. Life has treated me exceedingly well, I have been very lucky, most of it through sheer luck of birth and not through my own doing. I am grateful for all these things I have been given, but I also see the challenges that I have faced helped me to grow and become a better person. I’ve gained so much more from those challenges than all of the advantages and privileges that were handed to me.
I feel gratitude for all the people who helped me to get to this place. For my parents who gave so much time and love to me and my sisters as we were growing up. My mom in particular has always been positive and supportive about whatever I have done in my life. My kids are amazing people. They are role models for me, I learn so much from them – what they are doing in their lives, the courage they show, the decisions they make and the compassion and caring they have for others. I am grateful for my sisters who have expressed their appreciation that I’m here for our mom which takes some of the load off of them.
I am grateful for the warm, sunny days when I can sit outside to soak in the sun, for the cooler days which are wonderful for hiking and the rainy days when we get the precious water we need for everything to grow. How wonderful it is to go for a walk in the rain!
I’m grateful for the time I’ve had to learn, all the books I’ve read, talking to people about different ideas. Time to think and not rush.
The more I pay attention to what I’m grateful for, the more I have realized how few material things I need. It has become easier to cull out things that aren’t worth the time I spend on them. I’m grateful for changing things up and observing the impact of those changes on my life. There were many habits that I thought were set in stone that I could never change, but once I interrupted my routine I shifted.
Gratitude opens the door to seeing the interconnectedness between people and busts wide open the myth of anyone going it alone, being a self-made person. Through a gratitude practice I have seen how we are all so positively interdependent. Even if you grow your own food you likely use tools other people made, on land other people cultivated and that nature ultimately provided. Everything you wear has been created by other people. Being able to go anywhere – on foot, bike, public transport, car, train, plane – think of all the people involved in making the things necessary for transportation.
I feel gratitude for everything I’ve experienced during this time of my life, what I’ve learned, who I have met. This time has been about showing up for my life, paying attention to myself and how I am feeling, what I am interested in, what intrigues me, how I want to spend my time.
Gratitude sometimes comes up as a quiet, small, soft feeling, yet it can also be loud and huge and wild. Gratitude doesn’t have to be a still, little thing in the corner of your life. In fact gratitude can encompass everything in your life – how you spend your time, the people around you, where you are, how you are feeling, what you want to learn, what you do for work, how the earth and others have supported you.
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Attention is the doorway to gratitude, the doorway to wonder, the doorway to reciprocity. Robin Wall Kimmerer
Gratitude practices:
- Gratitude journal – handmade, doesn’t have to be fancy
- Gratitude jar – write down gratitudes on slips of paper
- Gratitude meditation – Short silent meditation to think about things you are grateful for – do it when you wake up or just before bed
- Gratitude apps – Happyfeed
- Special occasion decorations – Thanksgiving tree, paper chain, birthdays, anniversary
- Before a meal go around the table and have everyone say one thing they are grateful for. This can help encourage conversation
- Writing a letter to someone who you are grateful for telling them why. If possible bring it to them in person and read it aloud to them. Bring tissues!
- Create a gratitude space in your house – place items and pictures of things you are grateful for
- Post what you are grateful for on social media
- Your gratitude practice doesn’t have to be written – say it out loud before bed, sing, draw, sculpt, act, play
- Look for movies and music that showcase gratitude
- Mindfulness and gratitude – Importance of silence, slowing down and nature in gratitude practice
- Acts of gratitude. slowing down, being respectful, kind and curious about others
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When I started counting my blessings, my whole life turned around. Willie Nelson
Daily Gratitude Practice
A daily gratitude practice has been a positive in my life for 28 years. Here are some of things I love about keeping a gratitude journal:
- It’s free – you don’t need to go out and buy a special book, you can use any kind of notebook you have at hand or create your own.
- It’s simple & easy to do – you don’t need any special materials or education
- Practicing gratitude leads to positive mental health effects
- It encourages creativity
- It doesn’t have to take much time – you can do as much or as little as you want
- You can be grateful for good and bad things
- Anyone can do it – 2 to 102
- Gratitude can help you realize that everything is a gift, not a birthright
- People often want fewer material things when they see how much they have to be grateful for
- Feeling gratitude can lead you to want to help others
- It’s a positive and fun practice for families or other groups
- There are many different ways to practice gratitude
- It will lead you to feel more positive about your life. People’s thoughts skew toward the negative (80% of thoughts are negative) so you need to balance the negative with more positive. Thinking about what you are grateful for helps you see the positive things in your life.
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A beautifully flawed, memorable, and gratitude-filled life is at your fingertips. All you have to do is open your hands. And say yes. Rachel Macy Stafford
Thoughts about having a gratitude practice:
- Like with exercising, you want to feel excited and positive about your gratitude practice, that it is something to look forward to, not a chore.
- You can stop and start it whenever you want. Do it in the way that works for you. It’s not about a certain number of gratitudes or a certain number of days.
- Some days are easier to find things to be grateful for than others.
- A gratitude doesn’t have to be deep or intense. Seeing a bird in a tree, a hug from a friend, getting through the day.
- Your gratitude practice doesn’t have to be written – it can be experiential – you can draw, move, sing, etc.
- Do what works for you
- Start out small & simple, easy & fast
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That joy that doesn’t depend on what happens is the joy that springs from gratefulness. Brother David Steindl-Rast
Gratitude has been shown to have many positive benefits:
- Improve mental health – reduces stress and increases happiness and resilience
- Better sleep and healthier habits
- Strengthen relationships
- Trains your brain to notice good things, shifting focus to appreciation
- Makes challenges more manageable
- You realize more and more things you have to be grateful for. You can be grateful for people who helped you, helped you get where you are now, those who are close and far.
- Cultivating gratitude helps improve resilience, mood, relationships, overall sense of well being.
- Gratitude is the highest energetic vibration
- Releases the feel good chemicals like oxytocin, serotonin, etc. Helps to relieve pain. Redirect your attention to what you’re grateful for instead of the day you focus on what your attention is on. But you focus on you get more of. Also reduces cortisol bills resilience.
- Enhances relationships
- Can change the way you see the world and look at yourself.
- Helps you sleep better.
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Thankfulness is the beginning of gratitude. Gratitude is the completion of thankfulness. Thankfulness may consist merely of words. Gratitude is shown in acts. Henri Frederic Amiel
Questions to ask yourself about gratitude
- What does gratitude mean to me?
- Why is it important to be grateful?
- How do you notice things to be grateful for?
- How do you express your gratitude?
- When do you want to express gratitude? (eg time of day, occasion)
- Who are you grateful for?
- Close ties – family, friends
- Medium ties – teachers, mentors, housecleaner
- Loose ties – people who make the food you buy, a favorite author
- What are things you can be grateful for in general? Specific?
- Money, food, shelter, country, community, health, nature
- What do you take for granted that you can be grateful for?
- Upbringing and/or background
- Your body and its abilities
- Skills, talents, qualities and characteristics
- Home environment
- Your life in general
- Did the pandemic make you think about these more?
- Think back 10, 20, 30+ years – what do we have now that makes our life better than when we didn’t have them?
- For the people in our lives – tell them!
- Self gratitude – how do you express gratitude to yourself? What things make you feel good physically, mentally, emotionally?
- Gratitude at work
- Gratitude at home
- Gratitude from service – volunteering/helping others
- Can you be grateful for little things? Negative things?
- What do you see that others aren’t grateful for that they should be?
- What are some acts of gratitude you could perform? How can you do them on a regular basis?
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When you change the way you look at things the things that you look at change Wayne Dyer
Gratitude survey
I am doing some informal research on people’s experiences with gratitude as part of a project to encourage people to incorporate gratitude practices into their lives. I’d love your input!
Take the survey here: