Gratitude

 

Gratitude….. one small, yet powerful word that literally means so much.

This will be a short post today, a short, but important one.  I would like to suggest that you find any jar you have lying around and do as I have done. Label it your “Gratitude” jar and simply slowly fill it with wee bits of paper on which you write things that you are grateful/thankful for. It could be the view from your window, a person who smiled at you, a colleague making you laugh, your favourite meal, your lovely family. Even when we are at our lowest, if we are breathing we are very likely to have things that we are grateful for.

The gratitude jar idea has been around for a while and if you simply google “gratitude jar” (be prepared to lose an hour or two) you will find many beautiful jars that put mine to shame. I don’t add to mine every day, although I would like to start doing that. At first it felt a little silly, but soon I found that I could write many at a time, although I prefer to focus on one and really think about why I am grateful for that one thing.

Another thing I would like to point out is that I fully understand that there may be some days that you cannot think of anything to be grateful for, but believe me, these are the days when reading your gratitude’s can really help. I did that the other day and found that each one brought back some beautiful memories that instantly improved my mood. I have read that some people like to build them up over the year and read them on the 31st of December to celebrate all the great things that have happened that year. Physically writing down what we are grateful for can be a huge motivator and a great way to work on our mental health as we only include the positive parts of our life even when our minds are torturing us with the negatives.

I’m in pain from a long training run today, however, my latest gratitude reads “I am grateful for my legs, they allow me to run far”. Many people don’t run and some people couldn’t even if they wanted to. I am very, very grateful that I can. I am even grateful for the pain I feel today.

I am also very grateful to you, for reading this post…. thank you.

What are you grateful for today? Do you already use a gratitude jar? Do you plan to start one?