As we enter into November and the season of Thanksgiving, there is always a sudden focus on gratitude. Everyone starts talking about what they’re thankful for and we become all warm and fuzzy when we’ve been bitter and cynical all year long.
I’m glad that so many people take Thanksgiving and the month of November to recognize all the goodness in their lives and give thanks for their many blessings, but why don’t we try to do that all year long?
Last month, I started a daily practice of keeping a gratitude journal. I noticed that I was being particularly negative in my thoughts and my words, and I felt guilty. I don’t want to live my life grumbling and complaining about everything that is going wrong. I want to be the person who celebrates the good, even when things are hard and even when the tough stuff threatens to consume me. I recognized that I have a natural tendency to focus on what’s going wrong, to zoom in on the negative so closely that it becomes all I can see. I’m not sure why I do this, but when I noticed that it was negatively affecting my attitude and my life, I decided to do something about it.
Every single morning for the past five weeks, I’ve been writing down five things for which I’m grateful. I’m not gonna lie, this has not been easy. There were a few particularly rough weeks during that time where my list looked something like this:
I’m grateful for chocolate.
I’m grateful for coffee. Lots of it.
I’m grateful for margaritas.
I’m grateful for nachos.
I’m REALLY grateful for wine.
I mean, who isn’t grateful for those things?!
But on my better days, I tried to dig a little deeper and put some larger stuff into perspective. On those days, my list looked more like this:
I’m grateful for a challenging situation at work because it’s teaching me how to stand up for myself.
I’m grateful that a situation I longed for didn’t work out, because I wound up with something WAY better in the end.
I’m grateful that so and so is being mean and hateful to me because it’s helping me get comfortable with rejection and teaching me that I can no longer try to please everyone in my life.
I am so very grateful for the blessings that were only dreams in my heart not too long ago, and are now a reality in my life. I recognize that many of these blessings are still just dreams for many people and I don’t take them lightly.
I’m thankful for tough situations in life, because they give me an opportunity to show my son how to handle the hard stuff rather than hide from it.
This practice has forced me to re-frame some situations in my life that at one time seemed completely negative. It has helped me recognize that there is almost always some silver lining or positive aspect to any situation if you look closely enough and you’re willing to be honest with yourself about where you need to learn and grow in your life.
