Thanksgiving: Your Gratitude Practice
Thanksgiving is this week. And as the name implies, it is a time to give thanks. In other words, a time of gratitude. I’ve mentioned gratitude in the past, but today, I want to focus only on gratitude. More specifically, I want to help you develop a gratitude practice and share some thoughts on what I think should be included in an effective, and potentially life-changing, gratitude practice.
First, I think we should start with why gratitude matters. For me, the first and most obvious reason is that gratitude feels awesome. Who doesn’t like feeling grateful? Feeling proud and successful is great, but those can be accomplished by yourself. Gratitude is a sense that you’re not alone. With recent events, it can be very easy to feel alone, but when I’m grateful, I’m flooded with emotions that remind me of all the people, places, and things in my life. There are also more scientific reasons that I won’t get to here, mostly because I’m sure I’ll misspell it or explain it wrong, but there are lots of benefits to it. They all fall under the idea that when you’re grateful, you’re able to think more creatively or outside of the box and you’re also able to do things that you might not do when you’re stressed and worried about something. A third reason is that you can’t feel any negative emotions or feelings when you’re in a state of gratitude.
When I broke down my own gratitude practice, I found four general categories of things I was grateful for: good things in your life, things you take for granted, unknown things, and yourself.
The first category is somewhat obvious. When you have a beautiful home, a loving family, and plenty of food those are good things in your life. What are all the good things going on in your life?
The second category is when we take things for granted. When was the last time you thanked your heart for beating? How about your lungs for helping you breathe? You know that if they stopped working, you would too… so don’t you think some thanks would be appreciated? I say that tongue in cheek, but do you see how easy it is to take something so important for granted? It could be the breeze during a heatwave, or the sunshine on a cold morning. You know one thing I’m guilty of? Taking my parents and in-laws for granted. They provide so much support to my family, especially with taking care of our son, I know I don’t thank them enough.
The third category is the unknown. I have a story to share with this, but I’ll save that for another time. The idea behind it though is that we don’t know when we’ve somehow been helped out somehow. When things magically work out or if you see that you’ve somehow been blessed, this is an example of the unknown.
Finally, the fourth category is yourself. This may sound a little egotistical, but I do find it to be important. I’ve met a lot of people, myself included, who regularly put themselves down. If you’ve ever struggled with self-confidence or looked for approval from others, I believe that this specific form of gratitude is needed. If you’re having a hard day and you made it to the end of the night without breaking down, that deserves a moment of gratitude. Maybe your health hasn’t been great and you stuck with your diet or did your workout. It may not have been pretty or didn’t feel great, but you did it, good job!
I want to emphasize that there is no right or wrong way to practice gratitude, as long as you do it. I've been most successful catching it in the moment. I’ll stop whatever I’m doing, put my hands over my heart, and just feel gratitude for a few seconds. Some people incorporate it into a morning meditation or something like that. That’s also great. Mess around with it and see what works best for you.
So what are you grateful for? Do you have things to fit into each of the four categories? What does your gratitude practice look like? Or maybe how will you build your gratitude practice? Let me know your answers or if you have any questions and want some support.
I’m grateful to all of you who have been reading my articles all year. It’s been an honor writing for you all this past year and I look forward to walking through more life together. THANK YOU!
Kevin helps people gain clarity on what they want in life, craft a plan, and support in the execution of the plan while counting his blessings. Contact him at kevinkoocoaching@gmail.com
