Gratitude. What comes to mind? I think of Thanksgiving, making lists, having “an attitude of gratitude,” searching, joy, finding the silver lining…
What comes to your mind when you think of gratitude?
How do you practice gratitude? {Because I do believe that gratitude is a practice and takes practice}.
When I was in grade school I only really thought about being thankful at Thanksgiving time, when my teacher would give us a list of the alphabet and our goal was to write something that started with each letter for which we were grateful.
A few years down the road, when I was 13 or 14 I decided to dedicate a whole journal to gratitude. Each day for months I wrote about one thing for which I was thankful.
A few more years passed and I decided to dedicate a personal prayer each week to only thank the Lord for my blessings. This practice was humbling and purifying.
Several more years passed and after reading One Thousand Gifts, I took the challenge to list 1000 things for which I was thankful. It took me months and culminated when my daughter was born. She was my #1000. This challenge resulted in my year’s theme of eucharisteo.
A practice I enjoy now is to mindfully notice everything around me and give thanks in my heart or in a short, silent prayer. This has been further refining for me.
However we choose to practice gratitude, the result is the same. Not only do we increase our happiness levels and invite inner peace, we are presented with more and more experiences for which to be grateful. This has been such a surprising effect of being grateful. It’s a positive cycle and as you feel and express gratitude, and live with thanksgiving in your heart, you become a powerful magnet of good and gratifying experiences. And while we may still have days of challenge, for the most part our days can be overlaid with a warm, golden glow.
This overlay reminds me of a beautiful Sunday morning in Autumn last year. My family was sick, so I went to church by myself. I sat in Sacrament meeting a few benches behind where we usually sat. As the meeting started, I noticed a warmth and a glow I had never felt before. I looked up and to my left and saw that I was sitting below a beautiful stained glass window. The sun was in the perfect position to be shining through the glass, casting a warm glow on my face. It was a tender mercy from the Lord that I was grateful to experience. I made a goal to have my family sit there more often so I could feel the glow again.
We too can sit by the window of gratitude. Our experiences stay the same, just as the sun is always shining. But the medium of the gratitude stained glass window filters our experiences, making them glow and shine upon us…
Will you take the challenge? Will you commit to living just one day by the window of thanksgiving? What do you notice when you do this? Do you attract more and more goodness and abundance into your life by so doing? Do you feel a glowing warmth even in the midst of your daily experience because of the stained glass gratitude filter? I would love to hear your experience…
