And it all starts with gratitude.
Gratitude unlocks the fullness of life. It turns what we have into enough, and more. It turns denial into acceptance, chaos to order, confusion to clarity. It can turn a meal into a feast, a house into a home, a stranger into a friend. Gratitude makes sense of our past, brings peace for today and creates a vision for tomorrow.
-Melody Beattie
Unfortunately, the busyness of modern life can often distract us from giving attention to feeling grateful. This month we invite you to begin or restart a gratitude practice. Social science and personal experience demonstrate that even small, simple steps around gratitude can be very beneficial.
For example, try taking 60 seconds at the start or end of your day to identify 3 things for which you’re grateful. Even better, write those things down to reinforce your gratitude practice. Once you start doing so, notice how this practice impacts your day, your week and your month.
This month we’ll also begin to explore how a gratitude practice can support accepting ourselves and our present circumstances, rather than wasting energy on resisting what is or desiring things to be different than they are. When we make this shift we can redirect our energy to become much more present to our current gifts, challenges, and opportunities.
Which will then lead to a focus later in the month on the importance of continually connecting with a clear vision and purpose in our lives. In particular, how can we become more clear on who we are, what we’re doing, and why we’re doing it. This can help us turn from focusing on what’s missing in our lives to instead focus on serving and contributing to a mission greater than ourselves, which can lead to a more resilient mindset and more deeply fulfilling experience of life.
