Kindness and Gratitude Dance Together
If you begin and finish your days with thoughts of gratitude,
you’ll find yourself living from a place of abundance rather than lack.
Erica Layne
September 21st is World Gratitude Day, so we thought this was an opportunity to think about how to bring more gratitude into our lives.
We have noticed that the more we live with gratitude, the more we are inclined to be kind – to ourselves, to other people, and to this amazing planet that is our home. Gratitude is a practice that opens the heart, and kindness flows naturally from an open heart.
Our lives are so busy, full of schedules and obligations, that we often don’t take the time to stop and appreciate the good in our lives. We can begin to experience more gratitude by being aware of our thoughts. We can deliberately add more thoughts of appreciation by focusing on the things, people, and circumstances that uplift us.
Changing our mental focus takes practice, but in time it becomes a natural part of our daily lives.
Gratitude is an antidote to feelings of lack.
Most of the time, we go through our days and take the things in our lives for granted or wishing that we had more. Just pausing for a minute or two to be present, we can look around us, wherever we are, and focus on the things within our sight, one at a time, and think about how they make our lives easier or more pleasant. Gratitude wells up in us naturally.
As we think about people who add love and joy and a sense of belonging to our lives, even challenges that help us to grow, we can be thankful, even if they are not currently with us.
This practice is most powerful if we refrain from any thoughts of what we do not have that we wish we did. It requires us to be present in the moment and to experience the abundance of what we do have.
Expanding Everyday Gratitude
Recently, we have been looking for more ways to be in gratitude as we go through our day. The answer is right in front of us. Everything that we have and every activity in our day provides an opportunity to pause for a moment of thankfulness.
Larry and I are growing toward a more constant awareness of the good in our lives, despite whatever challenges we are facing. We look around and allow ourselves to be filled with an awareness of abundance.
As you sit in your home, we invite you to look at individual details, each piece of furniture, each appliance and tool that makes your life easier, things of beauty that you pass every day but do not notice. Being present for just a few minutes brings things to your attention that you had not thought about recently. Allow yourself to consider the difference that each one makes to your life.
How does that feel? Does gratitude well up in you?
Just being alive in this world is a gift. As you get dressed in the morning, do you feel gratitude for your body? Are you grateful for the clothes that help you to meet the new day?
As you prepare or eat food, do you think about how wonderful it is to have the ingredients that make the meal possible?
As you walk to your car, do you say a silent thank you to the car for getting you safely to your destination? We invite you to try it the next time you go out.
Did any of those take more time than your usual routine? The only difference is being aware of your focus and choosing to put aside thoughts about the day ahead for just a few minutes.
Bring gratitude to daily chores
As a teenager, my brothers and I had several daily chores, including keeping our bedrooms neat and clean, setting and clearing the table before and after meals, and washing and drying dishes.
We had weekly chores of cleaning the house and doing yard work. I have a vivid memory of cleaning the living room, which had several small shelves on the wall holding our mother’s knick-knacks. Our job was to vacuum the rug and to dust, not just the shelves, but each tiny item. It was tedious work, and time-consuming.
I got in the habit of singing as I worked, and it brought a lightness to the chore. To this day, I do chores with gratitude for whatever I am working with, noticing how much I appreciate having each item in my life… no knick-knacks, however.
Gratitude for Things not Wished for
When we feel obligated to perform an activity that we would not have chosen, we may feel frustrated, even resentful, at the interruption in our life. We can shift our experience by thinking differently about it. We can see it as an opportunity to expand, to find strength and abilities that we did not know we had and to find gratitude where we did not expect it.
After my mother was diagnosed with cancer, I became her caregiver. She needed my help to get to appointments for radiation and chemotherapy, and help with hygiene and other daily activities. For a while, it required most of my time.
I began to see my caregiving duties as rituals by which I could express my love for her and create a time of heart connection. That added dimension of awareness took me out of my head and into my heart and enabled me to be grateful for the opportunity for a closer relationship.
For six years, our relationship deepened, and I see those years as some of the most important in my life. I am grateful for every part of our time together.
To this day, I am grateful for the opportunity to live on Planet Earth, in this physical world, with all of its challenges and amazing blessings.
I am grateful for the loving partnership that Larry and I share and for the joy we experience as we learn how to navigate our chosen kindness path.
We hope that you find joy and gratitude every day on your chosen path.
Image by congerdesign from Pixabay
