Grow Your Gratitude - 8 Practices
Things are hard right now.
We are living in a societal state of crisis after crisis. 2020 is throwing many of us for a loop. And yet - good things could be emerging. We could start having more serious and needed conversations about racism in this country. These conversations might actually turn into structural actions and we might be helping to create a new world.
I want to highlight another tool used in positive psychology as a happiness and well being builder: GRATITUDE.
I am sure that you have read or seen about how practicing gratitude can help boost mood or decrease stress.
Gratitude is an amazing tool. It is not to be used as a panacea or a dulling or numbing tool. Gratitude is a connection tool and an abundance tool.
I am offering it today as a practice - not to make you happy with what is happening (injustice, brutality and pandemic) but to help you understand your capacity to respond. Gratitude asks you to your role and your response and the world as full of abundance. It helps you to work from a full cup and a full throated response that leads you out of despair and into agency and connection.
Fueling your work and your life with anger, stress and resentment may feel good - but it can be depleting. Gratitude helps us work - not from a place of burn out- but allows us to engage in a powerful, hopeful and creative way.
8 Practices To Grow Your Gratitude:
Keep A Gratitude Journal or List -Add three things each day or just keep a running list. Make this a daily habit to train your brain to practice looking for and listing things.
Share It - Tell people how you are grateful for them or time with them. Tell people in person or drop a note or text.
Notice Small Beauties - Let yourself small moments of beauty (a sunset while driving or a bird by your window) - pay attention to these and send up a thank you for them.
Positive Reframes - Ask yourself what you learned in a challenging situation or begin to see hard tasks as opportunities that can lead to great growth.
Engage An Abundance Mindset- It is so easy to work out of scarcity - but by cataloguing and celebrating all the resources or strengths you do have - it becomes mentally easier to take on a challenge because you go into it knowing how far you have come and that you have the capability that you need.
Practice Kindness and Generosity - This can look like volunteering or donating money to a cause that is important to you. It can also mean trying to practice one kind act a day for a stranger or practicing generosity when ever you get the impulse (see a friend raising money for their bday for a bail fund - just immediately donate - don’t talk yourself out of it!)
“Look For The Helpers” - This is from Mr. Rogers who said his mother always told him to look for those rushing into help people when something bad happens. It can be so easy to focus on the negative while the best of human nature is on full display in crisis.
Practice Gratitude Meditation or Loving Kindness Meditation - Check out some examples here and here.
