Cultivating Gratitude

As I write this, I’m sitting on the couch in a comfortable, familiar room at my parents’ farm.  It’s early morning and the household is waking up.  We are wrapping up a lovely Thanksgiving holiday together and will soon be making the trip home.  We’ve shared a lot of memories together and made some new ones that we’ll enjoy again and again.  It has been time well spent.

I’ve been thinking about when and how we stop to relax, reflect, and celebrate the blessings in our lives.  I’m grateful for the wise traditions that prompt us to regularly do this together – from holidays, to weekly Sabbaths, to mealtime blessings – these moments create a context that encourage us cultivate gratitude.

Gratitude has been something that I’ve been intentionally nourishing as part of my golden orbit.  So far, it has been the consistent thread that has woven throughout my days over the last month or so – the practice of keeping a “gratitude journal”.  Before my birthday, I looked around until I found the perfect receptacle for my thoughts – a pretty red and gold volume - and I keep it by my bedside with a pen on top.  No matter what kind of day I’ve had, or what kind of mood I’m in, this practice prompts me to find five things (preferably new) for which I am grateful.

As expected, this practice has been a great anchor to connect me to all that is good in my life.  Like mindfulness, and other practices that we’re hearing more about these days – there is accumulating evidence that habits such as these make a difference in how we experience our lives.  I think of gratitude as a muscle that gets stronger with use.  Exercising my gratitude “muscle” allows me to access all of the positive emotions that accompany this practice – more quickly and more consistently.

There is a great TED talk by Shawn Achor that shares about the effect that gratitude journals and other practices like it have and how they can be used to enhance our lives.  If you have a few minutes, I highly recommend watching it.



Whether we are more persuaded by great spiritual teachers or academic research, the message is the same:  Gratitude is good for us, and gratitude can be cultivated.

I’d love to hear about your experiences.  How do you cultivate gratitude in your life?

Beginning

I'm not sure where the idea started, but it has been brewing for awhile...

At some point, I began to think about how each birthday represents a completion.  When we turn one, we have completed a year of life.  We continue to call ourselves the age of our last birthday, even though we've already started another journey around the sun.  Isn't that curious?

I am drawn to journeys more than destinations.  So perhaps that is why I made up my mind several months ago to reframe my approaching 50th birthday.  Yesterday, I celebrated a wonderful 49th birthday.  Today, I am beginning my 50th trip around the sun!  I am calling it my "golden orbit".  I intend to create a year of celebration -- not about me -- but about this amazing life that I am privileged to live.

I don't know what this celebration will look like, but I am inspired by the opportunity to inquire, and grateful for anyone who would like to join me.  The beauty is that we aren't bound by milestone birthdays.  We are bound only by our imaginations.  We actually could choose to create a golden orbit at any moment. For me, it centers on a question:  How will I discover (uncover) all that is golden in my life?  It promises to be a journey full of gratitude and inspiration.

As Lao Tzu said, "A journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step".  With a deep, grateful breath - I am taking the first one.

Wishing you well in your journey!