Last year I started a gratitude practice with a friend who lives overseas. I had read a lot about the power of gratitude and even had a gratitude journal but hadn’t put it into practice, 2018 for me was the year!
Today as you celebrate this new year, pause and take time to reflect on your day, before you go to bed write five things you are grateful for.
As you write, take a moment to recall each of the five things as you write them, allow yourself to feel the experience, allow the feelings of gratitude to expand.
You can write them in your journal, or take a note on your phone or you may chose to start the practice with a friend and send each other a message each evening.
Gratitude has been widely research and has many benefits:
- Elevated mood;
- Improved immune system;
- Increased happiness and wellbeing;
- Provides a greater sense of purpose;
- Lower blood pressure;
- Prolongs the enjoyment of pleasurable experiences; and
- Helps you achieve a good night of sleep
Find gratitude and give thanks for the little and the large things in life. I am always grateful for hugs and my morning coffee, equally my health, my friends, my comfortable bed. Other days it is specific perhaps a walk-in nature, a random chat with a stranger, or the help I receive when I manage to spill my takeout coffee all over myself and the floor!
Tell people how grateful you are to them that they are in your life and watch the gratitude amplify.
To be able to look back upon one’s life in satisfaction, is to live twice
Kahlil Gibran
First published on Wild Orange