“I am grateful for being able to sleep, eat, and drink so I can stay alive!”
This is what my 9 year old daughter shared last night at dinner. It is our tradition to say grace and give thanks before we eat. Often she will share her gratitude for things the rest of us just don’t think of.
In the spirit of Thanksgiving and gratitude, I just want to take a moment to say thank you.
I have learned some valuable lessons this past year, all of which I am grateful for. But without my friends, family, connections and support from those who have come in and out of my life, I would be nothing.
And here are 3 things that I have experienced this past year that helped me feel and experience the gratitude I have.
1. Share my gratitude daily. I usually do this with my family at dinner. Many days, it was difficult to find something to be grateful for, but verbalizing something and sharing it helped me feel it more.
2. BE grateful in bad moments. I can’t say that I do this one well. But I have found that by finding something that I could be thankful for helped me get past the bad moments faster.
3. Allow myself to feel ALL my emotions. I discovered (and this was difficult for me) that when I allowed myself to be angry or hurt or sad, I was also able to feel the gratitude of the moment easier. But when I bottled the emotions that I considered negative and a waste of time, I would go numb. I didn’t feel the anger, but I also could not feel the good that came out of the situation.
I have also, very recently, been practicing more daily self-care that includes meditating, taking breaks from work and family (even locking myself in my bedroom for 10 minutes) and even taking my supplements, resting and feeding myself. All of these ritualistic practices are helping me to feel more gratitude and be more positive about everything.