We hear and read about gratitude a lot recently – well, I do. It’s the hot wellness topic! Like the UGG boots of self-development, but in the early 2000’s.
There’s a good reason for it, focusing on our gratitudes actually does make us feel different.
Sidenote: I don’t know that there’s a way to scientifically measure the effects of gratitude and a scientific process to gratitude. So, please take this as a disclaimer that this is not scientific and solely based on my observations. I hope that’s good enough…
Today, I would like to be able to give someone a book about how to find their gratitudes and feel good with the Now. This person is somewhat overwhelmed with all the issues swarming around them and they are focused outward.
Sidenote: I say “gratitudes” because I feel they should be countable. I know that it should not be a plural word, but I think we can all agree that “gratitude” should be more than singular.
Let’s do this!
One of the main suggestions I hear about is to make a list of your Top-3 Gratitudes every morning and every evening, framing our day with a good start and a good wrap-up: Gratitude book-ends 🙂
I’ve seen lists on Pinterest on prompting points on different areas of life about where we can find gratitudes.
Many people make Top-10 lists of gratitudes when they feel down.
With all these ways to list gratitudes, I got to wondering how to we reach to our true gratitudes?
I realized that some of us have a very hard time to know what they are grateful for and when faced with a gratitude activity, the items they list end up so far away from them. This means that the items can be environmental and physical: house, car, job, partner, …
Which leads me to wonder what constitutes a good gratitude? Are there good ones and bad ones? Real ones and fake ones?
Overshare: When I was a kid and things weren’t going great, my mother used to guide me through a list of gratitudes: “I’m a very lucky girl. I have all my fingers and toes, I was born healthy in a good country. I am smart and can get an education. I have food, a home and electricity.”
Let’s be practical
Activity 1:
In order to start to look at Gratitude and Gratitudes more practically, I feel that knowing what we are grateful for is a great way to start. If you can, try to give yourself some uninterrupted time to write out all the things you are currently grateful for, things you are grateful about from the past and anything else that might come to mind.
Karine’s definition of Gratitudes: Gratitude is an attitude of noticing and appreciating separate elements of our life that allow us to live, thrive and strive. Though gratitude is an attitude, it can also be a unique experience and emotion. When gratitude is an emotion, it can be prompted by an event or can be a blanket approach to observing and living our life. Gratitudes (plural), in contrast, are each and all of the noticed elements. These can be each of the smallest atom that make up our body to each atom of the Universe. They can be each ray of sunlight as well as all the positive effects the sun has on Earth. Gratitudes and gratitude used together create a vantage point of appreciation towards all the elements of living, including what is unseen and unknown.
Being grateful is a blanket emotion that is always on and scanning for all the gratitudes in our life. When our scanner isn’t detecting a lot to be grateful for, we need to refill.
Refill at the Gratitude Station
The whole thing about this MiniBook is to be able to refill our gratitudes. How can we do that?!
Activity 2:
- Feel.
In a safe place, try to close your eyes and feel all of yourself from bringing your attention to each part. This is without using your hands. - Notice.
With your focus, bring your focus to how your skin feels in different parts of your body and realize that you have skin, think of how interesting the creation of skin is and what it protects us from and what it does. - Breathe.
Taking our time to feel our body makes it important for us to have attention towards our breath. Breathe in fully and slowly through this process. - Continue.
As you proceed with feeling your body, guide yourself through different aspects such as: your blood and heart, and each body part and what it does. - Expand.
Appreciating all our body does is important, but as we expand our focus out to the world directly around us, we feel the air on our skin as well as any textures we can feel. - Breathe.
Friendly reminder to breathe fully.
These are the first steps to focusing on the basics of our self: the physical parts.
The next section is about the connection to our core self: our Soul, thoughts and emotions. Take your time with breathing through the process.
- Direct the question inside yourself and ask:
Where am I inside this body?
What do I know about myself?
How am I today? - Know that you are the only you there is. Physically, there are billions of us on Earth, but Soul-wise, each of us is unique.
- Bring to mind what you remember from the list of gratitudes you made earlier.
- Ask yourself:
What am I grateful for in my physical body?
What am I grateful for in my mind?
What am I grateful for in my Soul?
What am I grateful for in this moment?
In this day?
In this era of my life?
Is there something else I am grateful for?
Activity 3:
Write out all the elements you are grateful for.
Activity 4:
Over the next few days, keep a pen and paper handy and try to jot down the gratitudes you feel as they come to you. Try to take a few moments a day to stop, breathe and feel. I suggest to try to notice the time and make a small stop, such as every hour at 00 for 3 minutes.
Sidenote: The reason for the multiple stops at the Refill Station are to give ourselves the opportunities to find different elements of gratitudes through the day.
I hope you find countless elements to be grateful for.
Enjoy,
Karine