This week in the U.S.A., we will celebrate a national holiday we call Thanksgiving Day. We aren’t the only nation with a holiday set aside to remind us to give thanks. Many countries across the globe celebrate days of thanksgiving. This need is so important and so often overlooked, we need a whole holiday as a reminder. But expressing gratitude only once a year is a broken and backward way to be happier.
Why Practice Gratitude?
Gratitude is an emotion and a personality trait. According to Psychology Today, gratitude is both a temporary feeling and a dispositional trait. In both cases, gratitude involves a process of recognizing, first, that one has obtained a positive outcome and, second, that there is an external source for that good outcome.
Research has shown that grateful people are happier, less likely to be affected by depression, have lower blood pressure, sleep better, and have stronger relationships through connections and kindness. And some studies suggest gratitude promotes creativity.
Gratitude promotes innovative thinking, flexibility, openness, curiosity, and love of learning.- Greater Good
Finally, when people receive thanks, they tend to help others in the future.
Who wouldn’t want that? But you protest, it’s not in my DNA. Never fear. You can learn to see and feel more gratitude. This article will help you begin the practice of gratitude.
How to Practice Gratitude
The practice of gratitude does not have to take much of your time. First, decide how you want to record your gratitude and where. You can use a jar, a box, a journal (handwritten or electronic), or even a Pinterest board or other software to record moments of gratitude. Make it easy on yourself. If you use a jar or box, keep a writing instrument and paper near the jar or box.
Practice gratitude for two minutes a day. You can do this any time of day, but at first it may be easier to do this either at the end of or at the beginning of your day. On your slip of paper, write the date you noticed this event or thing that you are thankful for. But what do you write?
Don’t worry if you skip a day or two. It’s a practice. Frequency counts more than consistency. Do it as frequently as you can. Maybe your life is chaotic enough you can’t do a daily note. That’s okay. Do it two or three times a week, or even once a week. Every little bit counts.
Start Small
Allow yourself to build the “muscle” of gratitude by expressing your thanks in one word, or for very tiny things at first. If you have difficulty coming up with things to be thankful for, you can write things like “the sun came up,” or “my morning cup of coffee.”
Be thankful for your health. Yes, this can be tough for those of us who have chronic pain or chronic debilitating illnesses. I am not asking you to make light of those things. I’m asking you to find one tiny aspect of being alive for which you are grateful. Breathing. Your heart beating. The ability to blink.
Be thankful for the ink in your pen, the paper you write on, your electronics, or the electric light that allows you to read without as much eye strain as in candlelight. Tiny entries count. In fact, I think the smaller the item or event you are thankful for, the greater value that gratitude has. For if we are thankful for the smallest things, how can be not be grateful for the large things?
Need more inspiration? Read this post about the crazy things I am grateful for.
If those things are still too big. Go smaller. Be thankful for this minute to read and reflect. For libraries. For water to bathe in. If you can think of only one thing to start with—Yay! You have one thing in your gratitude jar. Next year, you’ll have more.
Discover Gratitude in Your Challenges
This is for those of you who have practiced gratitude enough to be comfortable with the idea. Because now, I’m asking you to really look at the challenges you’ve faced this week/month/year and find the lessons you’ve learned or the changes that challenge created and recognize the blessings you received from that challenge.
Believe me, I understand how difficult it can be to look back at failures and say, I’m glad that happened. If that hadn’t happened, this other thing wouldn’t have happened. The longer we live, the more challenges we face. Some of them are very painful, and it’s difficult to find any reason to be thankful for that challenge. That’s okay. If you can’t find it in that challenge. Give it another day, week, month, or year. Instead, look at a different challenge in your life. One you can find a wee bit of a lesson or change and be thankful for it.
Reviewing Your Gratitude Notes
Try practicing gratitude for ninety days at first. Review your gratitude notes at the end of that time period. Dating your entries creates a record to remind you of your moments of gratitude you would have forgotten otherwise.
If you continue filling your gratitude “jar” all year, review it once a year. You can use Thanksgiving Day or New Year’s Eve, your birthday, or any other date you’ll remember every year.
However many times a year you review your notes, identify key themes, accomplishments, people and events that affected you. Why? That leads to the “overflow” of your gratitude.
Let Your Jar Overflow Into Action
Make a list of actions you can take based on the theme, or people, or events you identified when reviewing your notes of gratitude. What actions? You can decide to write a thank-you note to the people in your life. Your thank-you note may be just the bit of gratitude someone else needs that day.
Perhaps someone did you a kindness you can pay forward.
Opportunities are out there. We just have to tune our attention to see them.
From Empty Jar to Overflowing Life
Whether or not you celebrate Thanksgiving Day this week, take a chance. Start collecting your gratitude moments. Next Thanksgiving, you will look back. Imagine pulling out slip after slip, reliving moments of joy you might have otherwise forgotten. When your gratitude jar overflows—so does your life—with thanks, kindness, and a new level of appreciation for all the good things in your life.
So start today. Grab any container, write one thing you’re grateful for right now, and watch your journey begin. Your future self—the one reading through a full jar a year from now—will thank you for starting today.
Image Credits
Top image by Alexa from Pixabay
Middle image purchased from DepositPhotos
Final image by Jill Wellington from Pixabay