Living Gratefully: How to Practice Gratitude in Your Daily Life
Growing up, my family had a Thanksgiving tradition of walking around the block after dinner. We took our overstuffed selves to get some movement and fresh air, leaving dirty dishes and stained napkins behind.
While walking certainly did help with the food coma, the real benefit was the time to connect. We talked freely about anything that came to mind, laughed at silly jokes and simply appreciated each other's presence.
For much of my life, I associated gratitude with those kinds of “bigger” moments – heart-warming holiday traditions, epic family vacations, and celebratory milestones. These were moments where it was hard NOT to feel grateful. However, in recent years I’ve discovered that gratitude extends far beyond the big things in life. Gratitude is also part of the everyday. The silent moments. A simple conversation with a loved one. A nourishing meal. Living gratefully in every moment.
“At every moment, life gives you the opportunity to do something with what life gives you. And therefore, grateful living means learning to avail yourself, moment by moment, of that opportunity”
Brother David Steindle-Rast
Living gratefully is waking up tired and reminding yourself that you GET to get up and live. It’s saying something kind to a stranger you interacted with. It’s even sitting in traffic and finding peace in a moment to slow down and breathe.
It isn’t diminishing life’s challenges and ignoring negative feelings. Gratitude and hardship are not mutually exclusive. An essential part of living gratefully is LIVING, and living can be messy. In fact, gratitude is often felt most deeply in those messy moments. Moments of pain, sadness, anger, and uncertainty are all opportunities to let gratitude pull you through.
Shifting your mindset takes effort. Like all worthwhile changes, it requires practice. But as Henry Ward Beecher said, “There was never a person who did anything worth doing that he did not receive more than he gave.” I have found that living gratefully is the BEST example of this. You receive so much more than you give.
Let’s all live more gratefully! Here are a few tips for doing so….
How to Make Gratitude a Way of Life
Make it a routine! Start and end your day writing down 3 things you are grateful for.
Use Your Senses. Paying close attention to your senses helps you bring back into your body and appreciate what is in front of you. Next time you are on a walk pick one sense and note all the things associated with that. (example: sound. Notice the birds chirping, the wind, leaves falling, cars driving by or maybe just the silence)
Express Your Gratitude. Sharing your gratitude makes it more powerful. Write a letter to someone you are grateful for, or just tell a friend you are glad to have them in your life.
Slow Down. Can you find an extra moment in your day to breathe and take stock of the world around you?
Change One Word. The way you talk to yourself can greatly impact your attitude. Instead of saying “why did this happen TO me”, change it to “why did this happen for me”, you are setting yourself up to find the positives in each and every situation
Write a Letter to Your Younger Self. Looking at things from the perspective of your younger self can uncover things that you didn’t even know you were grateful for.