Cultivating the Power of Gratitude in Everyday Life

This time of year, with Thanksgiving headed our way, we’re often encouraged to focus on gratitude, count your blessings, or say thank you for all that we have.  And, for the most part we do, and we are thankful for our blessings. Yet, there are so many things to be grateful for. It’s also so much more than offering thanks for what we have. Gratitude is also an attitude and an action. 

Join me on the porch as we talk about how to cultivate the power of gratitude with our attitudes, and how to put it into action.

Gratitude Bingo Card

Transcript

This time of year, with Thanksgiving headed our way, we’re often encouraged to focus on gratitude, count your blessings, or say thank you for all that we have.  We’re also encouraged to extend this to a daily basis.

And, for the most part we do, and we are thankful for our blessings. But all too often, our gratitude list is filled with the big things – our family, spouse, children, home, and friends. Some of us take it a step further and add things such as our health, eyesight, or even our job and the car we drive to get there.

Yet, there are so many things to be grateful for. But it’s also so much more than offering thanks for what we have. Gratitude is also an attitude and an action. 

I’ll make a confession here. I’m not a big fan of laundry. It’s what I call a ‘hurry up and wait’ chore. We put the clothes in the washing machine, wait for it to finish. Then we take it out of the washer and either put it in the dryer or haul it outside to hang on the line. Then we wait for it to dry before folding it, hanging it up, and putting it away. This can be repeated two or more times a day, depending on how long we’ve let it pile up. 

It can be a real chore, especially if you’re like me and get involved in something else between cycles. That just drags it out even longer. 

But when I stop to think about it, I have a ‘gratitude attitude’ adjustment. Having to do laundry means I have clothes to wear, a machine to do the heavy work, and enough room in the yard to have a clothesline. Taken a step further, I also have the skills, physical ability, and the eyesight to do it right. 

It all comes down to perspective and attitude. You can apply the laundry scenario to any and every aspect of your life. Cleaning house, yard work, baking and cooking, gardening, and even your job. You may not ever fall in love with the work itself, but a healthy gratitude attitude towards it may make it easier to bear. 

But gratitude isn’t just an attitude. It’s also very much an action. It’s one thing to simply say the words ‘thank you’ or have a genuine appreciation for what we have. It’s a completely different thing to show our gratitude through action. 

Now, we don’t often think about showing our gratitude, unless it’s an ‘in the moment’ kind of thing – a hug, a smile, or speaking a few words of thanks. But sometimes we can share our gratitude in other ways. I agree these may be a bit of ‘out of the box’ thinking in some cases, but by trying them, it may just help you see just how many things you have in your life you where you can have a heart filled with gratitude. 

First, it may help to put your heart and mind in a gratitude mode. You can do this by sitting down and writing yourself two letters. The first one is to thank yourself for the person you were in the past. Think of the lessons you’ve learned, the people you’ve met, and the experiences you’ve had. Say thank you to yourself for the strength, resilience, and enjoyment for those things which shaped you into the person you are today. 

Next, write a letter to your future self. Express the hopes, dreams, and goals which will help to mold you into the person you want to become. Go ahead and thank yourself for what’s to come. This can help you stay focused on the things you want to do, the goals you set to get there, and for the people and experiences you will meet along the way. 

Another way you can be reminded of being grateful is to plant something. This can be a perennial flower, or even an herb such as Rosemary, which is known to represent Remembrance. Start it from seed or a cutting, and as you care for it, allow it to be a daily reminder of how a grateful heart can grow into a beautiful life.

One of the biggest challenges we face is being grateful, even when we’re in the middle of adversity. Take a moment to think back on the challenges and trials you have already been through. Look at what going through them did to help you learn, and ways they helped to make you stronger. 

We’ve already talked about Thanksgiving being one of the biggest reminders of our blessings. And we often start our new year off by listing our blessings from the previous year. But rather than confine it to a single day, or waiting for the new year to get here, create a list of Gratitude Resolutions right now, and make a commitment to focus on these things from now until next Thanksgiving. If you make it a part of your Thanksgiving planning each year, you’ll have a whole new list of things to be grateful for every day.

And please, don’t forget to offer gratitude for the forgotten heroes. Yes, our military and veterans should be on the list. But there are also others who go unnoticed – first responders, law enforcement, teachers, caregivers, and even the clerks at the grocery stores and receptionists at your doctor’s and dentist’s offices. These are the unsung heroes that make our life a bit easier. 

You can also take the gratitude action to a new level and include your family and friends. This year at Thanksgiving, consider ditching the freshly pressed fancy tablecloth. Instead, cover it with butcher paper. Add a centerpiece of a jar filled with colored pencils and markers. Ask each person to write down on the tablecloth what they are thankful for. Then, take pictures of it, and use them as a decoration, or even place cards for next year’s feast. You can also gather small stones, decorate them, and paint a single word on each one. Place one at each place setting for your guests to take home. 

And another way to share your gratitude with others is to create a Gratitude Chain. Remember the paper chains we made as kids? This applies the same principle. Have each guest write down what they are grateful for on a strip of paper. Glue the ends together on the first one, then add each one as a link. Use this gratitude chain as the garland on your Christmas tree, to remind you of all your family has to be grateful for. 

And don’t ever forget all the little things you have to be grateful for. These are the small, everyday things we so often take for granted – a refrigerator that keeps our food safe; books to read – and the writers that create them; the warmth from a blanket, cup of hot tea, and a quiet moment. The list of Little Things to Be Grateful for is endless. All you have to do is look around you, focus on the moment, and you’ll be able to add multitudes of blessings to your list.

I admit, there are quite a few things I’ve mentioned to help you to feel more grateful in your everyday life. And it may also be a lot to try and remember. If it is, why not make a game of it? Play Gratitude Bingo!  Using the boxed grid of a standard Bingo game, fill in each square with something you have on your list that reflects gratitude. You can add things such as writing a thank you note, complimenting a stranger, or even donating to your favorite charity. You can also make several and ask friends or family to participate as well. At Thanksgiving, see who had the most Bingos, and offer a small prize, such as a Gratitude Jar. This is a simple Jar filled with slips of paper. These slips can be blank, where the person who receives the jar can write down a Blessing of the Day or prewritten with the different reasons they have to be grateful. Or you can do both. If they draw one out that has a blessing on it, they can focus on it. But if they draw a blank one out, they can write down their own blessing for the day. And if you need help, head over to the show notes section of this podcast. I created one that will either get you started or give you ideas to make your own. 

Yes, we always need to be grateful for the big things in our lives. But there are also so many little things we have that are worthy of our thanks. And sharing our gratitude is a great way to lift the hearts of others. And it may just begin to spread throughout your family, friends, and community. And wouldn’t this world be a better place to live if we spent our time counting our blessings, instead of our troubles? 

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Thanks again for stopping in. I will see you next week on Living a Simple Life with a Back Porch View. And while you are waiting for the next episode, grab that glass of refreshment, pull up a rocker, and sit back for a while. It’s time to relax and enjoy.