How To Make Your Gratefulness Practice Easier

For years now I’ve sustained a gratefulness habit. Each morning, just after I’ve woken up, I write ten things that I’m thankful for in a pretty little notebook. My cover of my current version is by Angela Harding. She’s a linocut artist who first came to my attention when I saw the cover of The Salt Path. Many of you will know the story. The author, Raynor Winn, and her husband, Moth, walked the South West Coast Path after losing their home. Anyway the beautiful design is what first drew me to read the book. I was memorised by it when I spied it in the window of a bookstore in Falmouth a few years back.

But I digress! The notebooks that I use for my gratefulness journals are from Flame Tree. They’re beautifully bound and come with a ribbon bookmark and a little back pocket. They’re dead posh! I’m on my third so that shows how long that I’ve kept this habit going. My first two notebooks had Moomins on their covers. I’m a bit of a fan of Tove Jannsen’s imaginary creatures. But this time I thought that I’d ring the changes this time.

The Benefits of Gratefulness

There’s loads of scientific research supporting the idea that gratefulness is good for our physical, mental and emotional health. Not only that, it contributes to the cohesion of society. If you want to find out more here’s a link to a lovely article from the Mindful website. to start your reading journey.

I wonder if my state of being extremely contentment is a consequence of the practice. We lead a pretty modest life but I don’t feel a sense of lack. Rather I believe that I’ve got pretty much everything I need. We have a roof over our heads, comfortable surroundings, food, warmth,, good friends and family and a meaningful life. Even if we had a massive windfall I don’t know that we’d spend it on ourselves to substantially change our lives for the better.

The other thing about my gratefulness practice is that it can be a real mood booster in more difficult times. Of course, it’s easy peasy to find things to be thankful for when life is going swimmingly. Like when I’m on holiday. I could fill a whole book with all the wonderful experiences that I’ve have in a twenty four hour period;.

It’s a less straightforward exercise, for example, when loved ones or myself are experiencing health problems or another type of crisis. Then of course there are the times when there seem to be a veritable tsunami of difficulties that all come at once. During these periods I actively seek out the things, amidst the turmoil, that I can be grateful for. A perfect cup of tea made by a family member might go unnoticed when everything is fine and dandy but it becomes one of the ten literal godsends in a day filled with heavy shit.

My Secret of Making Gratefulness Practice Easier

Something dawned on me the other day as I was writing in my gratefulness journal. The weather, the day before, had been wild and woolly. What’s more I hadn’t been feeling particularly well. It felt as if a cold was about to emerge although it never actually materialised.

So I’d stayed indoors the whole day aside from a trip into the shed, just three steps away from the back door. That’s a pretty rare occurrence. We built a shelf for our microwave that had previously been housed on a coffee table. I also did a bit of mosaicking and got to the bottom of a problem on my website. It was a pretty productive day in spite of being housebound. Even so finding things to be grateful for the next morning was quite a challenge.

And then it clicked. It’s so much easier to be thankful when I’ve spent time outside even on those groundhog days where nothing spectacular happens. There was a lot of those over the summer. I spent day after day tending the allotment while Paul and his friends replaced our roof. Constant weeding seemed a small price to pay for not having water dripping through the ceiling in my bedroom in the middle of the night.

I can always find plenty to be thankful for when I’m outdoors whatever the weather: a plant that surprises me as it peeps through a crack, the myriad of worms that I dig up who are making luscious soil for my veg to thrive in, a weird shaped cloud., a sighting of an unusual mammal or bird. The list goes on and on.

So that’s my secret of making gratefulness practice easier. Go outside and link in with Mother Nature’s version of show and tell. She’ll always show you a host of things that it’s easy to be thankful for!

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