I have a little present for you today, something you can do that will give you an increased sense of meaning, a bit of ordinary everyday magic that we, who are so blessed in so many ways, all too often overlook. And that magic goes by the name of gratitude.
Willing to try a quick experiment? Think of somebody you love—a family member, a friend, even a pet. You can even choose someone from your past if you like. Now just for a few moments, put your open hand over your heart, feel its warmth, close your eyes and holding your loved one in mind, allow yourself just to feel the sensations in your heart area. Don’t let thoughts about that person take your attention; just sit quietly and feel your appreciation. Go ahead and do that right now, then slowly open your eyes and come back to reading.
I asked you to do that because when we read about gratitude, we’re just feeding our minds. I wanted you to connect with the heart-glow that gratitude gives you.
Like all the positive emotions, gratitude is short-lived, fleeting. And yet it has a unique and special power to enrich us and expand our sense of well-being. It opens the door for other good feelings to enter.
What brought it to mind for me was a link a friend sent me to a heart-warming video about artist Lori Portka. She decided to create 100 little gratitude cards and to send them to 100 people in her life. In the video, she shares what she learned about gratitude in the process and you get to see the way that her experiment touched other people’s lives.
It reminded me of the time a friend of mine in Japan sent a gratitude postcard to 30 people over the course of the month. He, too, discovered the powerful magic that gratitude holds.
Gratitude can be both external and internal. We can be grateful for things “out there,” such as other people, or our homes, or jobs, or a sunny day, or soft socks. Or it can be internal, focusing on our gratitude for our health, for our breathing lungs, for the way we think, for our senses of humor, for experiences.
Once I wrote the story of a woman who made a practice of pausing for gratitude at the endings of things:
She uses endings that occur throughout her day as a trigger for remembering to tune in to her gratitude. When a conversation ends, or a class, or when she leaves a room or a building, or completes a project or a task, she closes it by taking a few seconds to appreciate what she has just experienced and to feel gratitude for it.
Imagine what this practice could do for your marriage or your relationship with your kids or parents or a business partner or colleague? Imagine taking a moment to feel gratitude every time you ended an exchange with one of them! Powerful stuff!
If you do nothing else to cultivate gratitude in your life, each night as you prepare to sleep, celebrate the day’s ending, letting yourself recall one or two things from your day for which you are grateful, and just as you did at the beginning of this letter, let yourself sink into the feeling of heart-felt appreciation and to relax for a moment in its glow.
Wishing you a week brimming with gratitude and joy! And let me add my thanks to you for reading the thoughts I share. It adds meaning and purpose to my life, and that’s a pretty special gift to give someone.
Warmly,
Susan
Image by Gerd Altmann from Pixabay