With Thanksgiving right around the corner, ‘tis the season of gratitude — but really, every season, every day, should be one of gratitude.
Gratitude is the secret sauce for joy. People tend to think that one’s circumstances, situation, talents, or pure luck are the sources of joy. Not so, my friends. Joy, from my experience, is deeply internal and is intimately connected to gratitude. And gratitude is always a choice.
Life throws shit (excuse my language) at everyone. EVERYONE. Yep. Everyone has some form of shit (let’s say “poop”) in some area of his or her life.
So the question then becomes, how do we choose to see the “poop”? And yes, it is a choice. We can’t control the poop (“poop happens,” after all), but we can control how we see it.
Let‘s look at a real, concrete example. There’s some poop in your backyard. Well, did you know that you can add the poop to compost and convert it into nutrient-rich food for your garden?
So we’ve got Person A who sees the poop, gets mad at the dog, decides to do nothing about the poop, steps in it a few hours later, drags it into the house, gets mad at the poor dog again, and now has to deep clean the new carpet in the bedroom.
Person B sees the poop, exclaims, “Yes! I’ve finally got poop for my compost!”, praises the pup for pooping in the backyard, excitedly adds it to her compost which she adds to her garden a few months later, and is now able to save hundreds of dollars because her vegetable garden is so healthy and bountiful.
Now, who is living a better life?
Choose gratitude and we choose to live a life of joy, regardless of our circumstances.
Here are two exercises to help us get in the groove of practicing gratitude. Grab your journal.
Exercise 1
Make a chart — or a bubble map — of these five areas: friendships/relationships, family, work/job, finances, health, home. In each category, rate it on a scale of 1-5, 1 being “terrible” and 5 being “stellar.” Feel free to write down a quick synopsis of each category.
Now, focus on the categories that received 4 or 5 ratings. Do a 5-minute gratitude meditation where you express your thanks for that category.
Exercise 2
Make that same chart or bubble map again with the five areas. Rate the categories from 1-5. Feel free to write down a quick synopsis of each category.
Now, focus on the categories that received 1 or 2 ratings. Write down what isn’t going well and why it received a 1 or 2. Then, draw a straight, horizontal line underneath the description. Under the line, write “It could be worse by…” and think of all the ways the area/category could be worse.
Sometimes, to find gratitude in our circumstances, we have to think about how it could be worse in order for us to see the blessings we have. We think our grass isn’t very green, then we look over at our neighbor’s grass which is yellow. Compared to his, our grass is pretty darn green.
Gratitude has helped me through some very tough times. Gratitude is like a pair of glasses with which to see the world. It’s easy to look at our lives and find the flaws, the things that aren’t working out, or the failures. But when we look at our lives through the lens of gratitude, we find blessings over and over again. And we find peace.
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