Gratitude is good for you.
If you want to give yourself a present this year, cultivating a gratitude practice is one that can offer you gifts again and again.
Gratitude can help improve your relationships,your physical and psychological health, and your self-esteem. It can enhance empathy, increase mental health and reduce aggression, and also help you sleep better. All of this scientifically proven, according to psychologytoday.com.
You probably already have a sense that feeling grateful about life will help you feel better about life, which will increase your sense of overall happiness and satisfaction. It seems like common sense. (Science often does in the end.)
But how do you get started, especially if you’re in a place where life isn’t feeling all that great?
I’ve maintained a daily gratitude practice for years, through dreadful times and easier ones. While I still have days where it feels hard to dredge up something to feel thankful about, finding things to acknowledge that are going right in my life is worth the effort it takes.
Here are some ways you can get started and keep going.
Keep a gratitude journal
Each morning or evening (or both, if you like) write down something you’re grateful for. It can be a specific thing in your life that happened recently, or a more general state of being.
I write down my gratitude each morning, as that’s the most reliable and routine time of day for me, shortly after I wake up. Some people like to write down one thing they’re grateful for, other people write down three. Do what works for you.
I use either a blank journal or a morning/evening journal I created for myself. You might like to use one of the many, many options available out there in the world. Just search for “gratitude journal” on a site like amazon.com or look in your local bookstore. There are a ton of them. If you find one that speaks to you, great. But don’t get overwhelmed by someone else’s prescriptive method.
A blank journal works great.
Write the date: Monday, January 3, 2022
And then write: Today, I’m grateful for…….
That’s it. Simple as that.
I’ve also enjoyed using a “one line a day” journal in either a three-year or five-year format, as it lets you see what you wrote in prior years. (The link goes to amazon search results, not an affiliate link.)
Start a gratitude jar
Author Liz Gilbert keeps a happiness jar where, at the end of each day, she writes down the best (or least worst) moment of each day on a scrap of paper and drops it in a jar.
You can do the same with gratitude.
I gave this a try in 2016. I kept a jar on my bathroom counter and, as I got ready for bed at night, I’d think back over my day. When I came up with something from the day that made me feel warm inside, I wrote it down on a piece of paper and put it in the jar. At the end of the year, I fished them all out and wrote them in an electronic document for posterity.
Here are a few of mine from that year:
1/3/16 Reconnecting with friends.
1/6/16 Sleep.
1/7/16 Talking to Jennifer and having a cup of tea.
1/19/16 – How I felt after yoga class.
1/21/16 – Writing, even when it feels hard.
1/27/16 – A good meditation/mediumship circle.
1/29/16 – Planting trees in the mud and rain.
1/30/16 – Realizing Pizza and Mythbusters is a happy family tradition.
2/7/26 – Family dinner.
2/9/16 – Walking and seeing Spring all around.
2/14/16 – Our murder mystery dinner and the energy to do it.
4/8/16 – Friendship and sunshine, even in the midst of anxiety, pain and uncertainty.
6/5/16 – I continue to skootch projects forward.
7/16/16 – Snuggling my boy, realizing he’s going to keep growing up and all the things we think will never change will just keep changing and moving forward.
You can be grateful for so many different things. All of them count. All of them make a difference in your life and outlook.
Make a gratitude list
Feeling stuck? Write a list of everything you’re grateful for right now.
Seriously, get a piece of paper and start listing things. Do you have breathable air? Write it down. A home, clothes, food to eat? One friend, a family member, a pet? Do you have a hobby you can do? Does your body function in any way at all?
You have things you can be thankful for. Find them, even if you have to dig inside beneath your resentment, depression, and reluctance. It’s worth the work.
Express gratitude to others
Letting other people know when you appreciate them is another way to express gratitude for your life.
This can be as simple as thanking someone for holding a door open for you. Or go further by thanking a customer service rep for helping you out, especially if they’re working on a holiday or late hours, or anyone who goes out of their way to help you in some way.
Let the special people in your life know how and why you appreciate them. Text a friend and tell them what’s awesome about them. Are they a good listener, or have a great sense of humor? Are they there for you when you need them? Did they help you move that couch you bought from craigslist? Tell them. They’ll love to hear it, and it will do your heart good to express it.
The same is true for your family members.
If you have a significant other, consider leaving regular notes of gratitude for them to find. In our house, we have a tradition during December to write sweet notes to put in each other’s advent calendars (with some chocolate, too, of course).
A couple of months ago, I created a little book for my spouse in which I write short love notes of thanks and gratitude for the various things he does and what he means to me. He loves it. And it helps me to see the positive aspects of him and our relationship, rather than becoming irritated by small, unimportant things. Gratitude smooths daily friction.
Gratitude is a practice you can cultivate. Like a garden, it’s something you grow with time, attention and care. Your labor, no matter how hard it might feel at times, will produce brilliant and nourishing results that feed you in a way not much else can.