A Whole Lotta Gratitude
Happy Tuesday, friends! Eddie convinced me to get up at 5:30 this morning to catch an east coast sunrise, and despite my grumbling when the alarm went off, it was seriously stunning.
As we sat on the beach watching the sky run through the rainbow, I thought about how grateful I am for this crazy year. 2023 will go down as the wildest ride (and it’s only June!), but one that I feel beyond lucky to have experienced. Like everyone, I can get bogged down in the details, the planning, the errands, and the minutiae of the day-to-day, without stopping to look up and appreciate this life in all its splendor.
There is nothing like the ocean to pull us out of our heads and into gratitude.
Around this time last year, a friend of mine recommended keeping a Gratitude Journal. There are a couple of ways to do this, the easiest of which is to write down 3-5 things you’re grateful for each day. If you’re like me and struggle in the creativity department, I would highly recommend buying a Gratitude Journal that includes daily prompts, so that you don’t just end up writing the same things every time. I wrote in a guided journal for about eight months, and now I generally write my own prompts, or I simply document a couple of good things that have happened lately.
If you’re newer to the idea of gratitude journaling, here are a couple of prompts to get you started:
Which teacher, coach, or mentor are you the most grateful for?
Pinpoint a setback you’ve had that you can now see was a blessing.
What personality trait or skill of your own are you grateful you possess?
Choose a friend or relative and come up with three things you appreciate about them.
What’s your favorite part of the house or town you live in?
Who never fails to make you laugh?
What music album, piece of art, film, etc. are you grateful exists?
Best summer fruit? I’m feeling very grateful for watermelon these days.
You get the idea. It can actually be kind of fun to make your own prompts if you’re into that, or you can simply list the highlights of your day before you go to bed. Do whatever you need to do to make it your own. If you’ll indulge me this one suggestion though - write it down. It’s easy to just think through what we’re grateful for each day, but in my opinion, that’s not as powerful as taking pen to paper. Writing down what you’re grateful for has the added bonus of being fun to look back on later. My journal from the past year has a ton of references to small moments I would have otherwise forgotten. There is joy in revisiting the past through the lens of gratitude.
Wishing you a week of eyes wide open to all of the good.
