Maybe. Here are my top 10 things I’m grateful for about my gratitude practice:
Because I choose to be grateful for 20 things every day, I have to look all day to find those things
Because I challenge myself for those things to be new and unique to that day, I really have to look all day for them and that makes me appreciate so much more in the moment. Like I’m much more likely to stop and watch someone helping someone across the street, or admire a beautiful yard. And that’s a good feeling.
Because I read some GD study at Harvard that says that gratitude is transformative of your state of mind but not if you just think about it, only if you write it down or tell someone about it, I write it down.
Because I’m desperate to find new things to be grateful for, I have learned to mine those things that are the “worst” part of my day not just the best.
For example if my feelings about what a particular family member is doing or not doing are really distracting me, I find that after forcing myself to write 10 things I’m grateful for about that family member, usually by the 11th thing I actually mean it and feel a significant shift.
I pretty much always go to bed happy now that I use this practice.
It is like spiritual prozac and I’m convinced it chemically alters my brain.
I have two friends known to the world as Rev. Dr. Melissa Phillippe and Rev. Z Egloff who have a ministry called Oh My God, Life! — they taught me to do 5 “Future Gratitudes.”
They call those “the Magic 5” — those are 5 things I plan to be grateful for in the future not if they come to pass. I plan for them to come to pass.
But, even though everything I’ve ever put on my Magic 5 list has come to pass, I often forget to do it. What?
