Feel More Alive Through Gratitude

What if you could live your life in a way that made you feel most alive? What if you could experience joy, peace, meaning and unconditional love every day? Imagine how that would feel and how your way of being would be impacted. 

Now, what if I told you that one simple daily practice could ignite this within you? Would you be up for implementing it? 

This daily practice is simple and yet has profound effects… it’s called gratitude. 

The holiday season is often associated with giving thanks and being grateful for the abundance of life surrounding us. However, practicing gratitude is most impactful when it’s practiced on a daily basis. The benefits of practicing gratitude are nearly endless. People who regularly practice gratitude experience more positive emotions, feel more alive, sleep better, express more compassion and kindness, and even have stronger immune systems. Gratitude is a lifestyle, but sadly, it’s not practiced enough in the Western culture.

Life gets busy and we often get absorbed in the everyday routines we forget to pay attention to the little positive things that happen each day. The smile from a stranger, the text from an old friend, a cardinal playing at your feeder. Each of these small moments strings together to create a web of well-being that, over time, strengthens your ability to notice the good. You could almost say practicing gratitude is like looking at the world from the eyes of a child – seeing the wonder and magnificence of the things adults deem insignificant. 

Practicing gratitude is a lifestyle and takes conscious intention to implement, and the more you practice the greater your capacity will become. Here are 5 simple ways to become more grateful:

1. Gratitude Journal: Establish a daily practice in which you remind yourself of the gifts, grace, benefits, and good things you enjoy. Recall moments of gratitude and joy associated with ordinary events or valued people in your life and really feel into the emotion and sensations of gratitude and joy. 
   Savor the Moment:  Focus on the moments that are mundane or tiresome… How might gratefulness change your perspective on experiences that might feel like a “chore”? How can you find joy in every moment, both challenging and pleasurable? What positive outcome will come from that moment? What are you creating in that moment? For example, when you’re cooking grow a deep sense of gratitude for the path and community it took to get your food from the field to your plate. Consider the people, the land and all the natural wonders of the sun, rain, pollination that allowed your food to be created. Then consider the hands involved from nurturing the food, to picking and packaging it to packing it in the stores. There’s magic and complexity behind the meal you are producing. Immerse yourself into that feeling of wonder…. the feeling of who you want to be in that moment.  You choose the meaning that you assign to your experiences.
2. Gratitude Jar: Think of at least three things throughout your day that you are grateful for. It can be something as benign as a coffee at your favorite place, or as grand as the love of your significant other or dear friend. Do this every day, write down what you are grateful for on little slips of paper and fill the jar. If you are ever feeling especially down and need a quick pick-me-up, take a few notes out of the jar to remind yourself of who, and what, is good in your life.
3. Gratitude Walk: The goal of the gratitude walk is to observe the things you see around you as you walk. Take it all in. Be aware of nature, the colors of the trees, the sounds the birds make, and the smell of the plants, the sun on your face and the wind on your skin. Notice how your feet feel when you step onto the ground. Take it all in!
4. Gratitude Meditation: During a gratitude meditation you visualize all the things and people in your life that you are grateful for. While you’re visualizing, sink into the feeling these things make you feel. 

One of the most powerful ways to rewire your brain for more joy and less stress is to focus on gratitude. There’s no better time than the holiday season to kickstart a more grateful life. 

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