Do you know what’s hard sometimes? Practicing gratitude. I’m in the midst of reviewing my gratitude practices to see how I can make them work.
Gratitude – a practice?
But before I get into that I’d like to respond to a comment from my friend Holly Jahangiri. Here’s what she said:
It occurs to me that we talk a lot about “gratitude” as if it’s a practice or an art, when I think what’s meant is observation, noticing and appreciating small, good things rather than all the minor annoyances we encounter, right? In other words, noticing that we have things to be grateful for, rather than just noticing the little stones in our shoes.
I agree with with Holly that gratitude is an attitude, a way of looking at life, observing, noticing and appreciating things. But like any attitude it needs to be nurtured and deepened. And that’s where gratitude practices come in.
Reviewing My Gratitude Practices To Make Them Work
If you’re a regular reader here, you may have noticed that my monthly gratitude updates have been missing for a while.
Sometimes, writing gratitude lists is difficult for me. Let me make it clear that I do have things to be grateful for in my life. But if you count your blessings every single day – in the exact same way, in a nonvarying routine, loses its meaning. It can feel overwhelming to express gratitude when it seems like I’m just making a list for the sake of it.
So I’ve taken a break from this for sometime.
I’m attempting to try out different ways of focusing on gratitude and seeing how they work out for me.
- Notice three things I can be grateful for—even before getting out of bed. Kristi Nelson writes, “Think of things that you do not have to do anything to earn or receive from anyone else — things you are already receiving from life before doing anything. This is a powerful practice to greet each day and helps you to feel centered in the privilege and gifts of life.”
- Focusing on one aspect of my life at a time – and journaling all that I’m grateful for in that area.
- Do a focused set of exercises in gratitude like I did last year with a Grateful Perpectives series inspired by Kristi Nelson’s book.
- Re-start my gratitude art journal.
- Call or write to a friend from time to time and share what I am grateful for.
I’ll keep you posted on how this goes and would love to have your ideas and thoughts on what works for you.
♥
Corinne
I’m presently enjoying this song – thank you to life!
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I am going through a difficult time. I am grateful to have a family but absolutely want some of them to vanish forever from my life. I feel guilty for this thought but what to do just keeps coming. Some people bring out the worst in me. I don’t know how to feel grateful when I find everything so annoying. Then I try to focus forcibly on aspects of my life that are good. Gradually, I feel peace. Not everyone is meant to bring joy, some will bring out the dark side of me. As usual another beautiful post. Sorry for all the personal rantings.
“But if you count your blessings every single day – in the exact same way, in a nonvarying routine, loses its meaning. It can feel overwhelming to express gratitude when it seems like I’m just making a list for the sake of it.”
This is exactly what I was getting at. I’ve tried, with the “gratitude journal.” It just feels perfunctory and I start writing things like, “I’m grateful for pretzels.” Or “I’m grateful that that I have enough food,” which is true – but not terribly profound and far too easy, isn’t it? I mean, my problem is that I could stand to lose a few pounds, so am I really grateful for all the food? Or am I really grateful that I have never faced starvation or watched my kids waste away because I couldn’t afford to feed them?
That’s a BIG thing, but what’s a gratitude journal filled with the obvious? I still marvel at the day I saw newly-emerged praying mantis nymphs – tiny, perfect little creatures, probably between 50-100 of them, ready to take on the world. Only a few would survive. (They’re apparently ravenous and will eat each other, in addition to keeping garden pests under control.) But for that one moment, they were all translucent yellowish-green in the morning sunlight after a storm, and they were marvelous. I’d never seen such a thing. That should go into the gratitude journal, eh? That’s what I meant by “noticing.” And I do think “noticing” is a habit we can all work harder on, as we go about our busy, routine days. Otherwise, they’ll all be mundane and repetitive and we’ll miss the tiny, perfect things that surround us. Or we’ll forget them – they’re not big, significant, momentous things – but if we jot them down or save them in a photo album, we can look back on them and remember a special moment. (See the third photo here, on this post: https://www.instagram.com/p/COQ2vi3jacY/ )
Like Holly, the line which spoke to me the most is ‘But if you count your blessings every single day – in the exact same way, in a nonvarying routine, loses its meaning’. I think this is what happened to me in June. I lost the zeal to write in my gratitude journal and even to express gratitude in my heart. I found myself unable to feel the joy inside me which wasn’t the case in April and May. I continued to do things that otherwise raise my vibrations but they had no effect this time. I am hoping a shift takes place for me.