Gratitude

​In 6 months we will be celebrating all that we are grateful for in Thanksgiving. In my previous blog, I mentioned my gratitude journal. It seems fitting for me to have gratitude be a daily practice rather than once a year, and I have been feeling the benefits of it as well. I had originally heard about this daily journal practice several times over the past few years and had considered it as something I ‘might do one day.’ My inspiration to initiate and begin writing was two-fold. I heard about gratitude journaling from a group member in a group I was leading for the Hero’s Journey ‘Awakening the Ensemble Hero’ online program. As she spoke about it, my heart leapt with excitement. This time, before it fell back into the chasms of my mind, I also read about it in an inspirational book. With both of these inspirations combined, I launched into my daily practice of recording my gratitude. 
 
Prior to my written practice, I had begun naming my gratitude and thankfulness in prayer when putting Eliza to bed, but this feels very different than putting it into writing. It takes more time and energy to write them down and they feel more etched into my memory and awareness because of it. After Eliza is asleep, I take advantage of this quiet space and I use the time to read in my inspirational book as well as write. It’s an important quiet and restorative time for Me. 
 
My goal is to write at least 5 things I am grateful for each day, starting the sentence with ‘I am Grateful …’ On some days, it is easy to come up with 5 or more, and on other days I struggle to think of 5. On those days, I am steadfast. They tend to be rough days for whatever various reasons. I stick with my intention and sit until an honest and authentic gratitude comes to me. As I recall different moments I am grateful for, my mood slowly shifts. Yes, it was a hard day, but I still have so much to be grateful for. I can then face my days/nights with a new opening and a new perspective that had not been there previously. This is one of the many benefits I have found in recording my daily thanks-giving.
 
What this practice is not designed to do, is minimize struggle or hardships that we all face. Your challenges and my challenges are real and it would be unwise and unhealthy to minimize them. This practice is, however, designed to recognize what is hard, and within it to also find gratitude.
 
Many times in my gratitude journal I have written that I am grateful for friends, family and community. One of my first entries was a day when Eliza had been sick and vomiting, which is extremely difficult with a toddler. I wrote that I was grateful that I had the time to be with her, and to hold her and comfort her while she was sick. I remember her head gently lying on my chest as she rested a lot that day.
 
Since early March, I have been writing a specific gratitude at the end of each day’s list. “I am Grateful for my One Wild and Precious life.” It stems from the poem by Mary Oliver, “The Summer Day.”

Who made the world?
Who made the swan, and the black bear?
Who made the grasshopper?
This grasshopper, I mean--
the one who has flung herself out of the grass,
the one who is eating sugar out of my hand,
who is moving her jaws back and forth instead of up and down --
who is gazing around with her enormous and complicated eyes.
Now she lifts her pale forearms and thoroughly washes her face.
Now she snaps her wings open, and floats away.
I don't know exactly what a prayer is.
I do know how to pay attention, how to fall down
into the grass, how to kneel in the grass,
how to be idle and blessed, how to stroll through the fields
which is what I have been doing all day.
Tell me, what else should I have done?
Doesn't everything die at last, and too soon?
Tell me, what is it you plan to do
With your one wild and precious life?
 
                                 Mary Oliver
                                 "The Summer Day"

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​​Life Is Wild and certainly Precious. It is also fierce and tender. May you live and love to your fullest potential! I am grateful for You, and for my one wild and precious Life.


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                                                               Written by Janet Wepner

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