Feeling Gratitude and Being Grateful

We have decided to start our week with sharing our gratitude. I have a journal on my nightstand where I write 5 things each day that I am grateful for. It's funny how on the best days it pours out of me and I could write 20. On tough days, I sometimes have to dig really deep. Since practicing this, I have realized that it's those tough days where I learn the most and have the most gratitude. One day I wrote: "I am grateful for my home." I think this is something we all probably take for granted, but when I thought about it I realized that some people don't have a home or a roof over their heads--how fortunate am I?

I'd love to share an excerpt from Louise Hay's book, "Gratitude, A Way of Life" that speaks to this:

"It is relatively easy to feel grateful when good things are happening and life is going the way we want it to. Even then, we often take things for granted. It feels so good to take a moment to express our appreciation to other people, to the earth, to our higher power, to life.

A much greater challenge is to get in touch with gratitude when we are going through a difficult time, or life is not going the way we think it should. At these times, we are more likely to be feeling hurt, confused, or resentful, which is perfectly natural. Gratitude is the last thing that would occur to us at such a moment.

It's interesting, though, that after going through a difficult time, in retrospect we can often see that there was something important and necessary about that experience. We may not arrive at this perspective until months or even years later, but eventually we can see that there was some important lesson learned, a deepening of our wisdom, an awakening, or perhaps a new door that opened in our life as a result of events that seemed negative at the time."

I encourage you to keep a daily gratitude journal. Even if you can't get to it everyday, as we are human, try it and see what you can learn.

I'd like to share my gratitude list for today as I think back over the past few days:

1. I am grateful for a wonderful weekend with my family.
2. I am grateful for having a weekend of being home with my family and getting work done. Nothing feels better than a sense of accomplishment!
3. I am grateful for having amazing friends in my life.
4. I am grateful for having my work bring incredible people into my life that I would have never known.
5. I am grateful for taking the time to take care of myself.

Have a joyous week!
Deanna