Living Life in the Key of “G”(Gratitude)
Thanksgiving is an often forgotten holiday. It’s stuck there between Halloween and Christmas. Nowadays, we find people decorating for these October and December festivals, but Thanksgiving seems only to be a time to complain about how busy airports and highways are the Wednesday prior and the Sunday thereafter.
However, studies show that being appreciative of the good things in life foster greater success in work, better health, peak performance in sports or business, a well-developed sense of well-being, and even help you recover faster from surgical procedures.
Appreciating or viewing things with gratitude, although it makes sense, isn’t simply blind optimism. Instead, view this as a practice of substitution. Instead of complaining of lack, allow ourselves to see opportunities and blessing.
True, pain, injustice and trauma exists in the world. But so do gifts of life and hope. Learning to appreciate things balances us and gives us confidence to move forward in our day.
We learn to be grateful for friends who listen, pets who comfort, fires that warm, breezes that cool, beautiful sunrises or sunsets, and even the gentle rain from a summer storm.
Here are three ways that you can practice appreciating the good things in your life:
- Keep a journal in which you can write those things down. You can make it daily, weekly or whatever frequency seems to fit best. But remember, the more you write about the people and things for which you’re grateful, the better. And, greater frequency is better for creating new habits.
- If you’re feeling silly, or simply creative, make a collage of all the things for which you are thankful, by drawing, pasting or otherwise creating some visual representation of it.
- Certainly at Thanksgiving, and if you can remember to do so throughout the year, practice gratitude around your mealtimes, or part of a morning or nighttime routine. Consider making appreciation of the good things in life part of your daily meditation or spiritual practice.
Perhaps if we focus daily on the things that are good in our lives, the November holiday of Thanksgiving might return as a more meaningful celebration.
Whether you’re a client, a supporter, a fan or a colleague – the people we’ve been fortunate enough to surround ourselves with have made our experience at our company amazing. Thank you.
Best wishes for a happy Thanksgiving!
Happy Thanksgiving!