The Practice of Gratitude

by Dotti

November is the month when those of us in the United States turn our thoughts to gratitude. This is a good thing. Wherever you live on our great planet, I hope you'll keep reading and take the little challenge I have for you this month.

Two years ago, I took a 'Pathfinders' course with Karen Walrond. There were two big take aways from that course for me. One, I was inspired to email two friends and start a collaborative blog, a story you've read here before so I won't repeat it. The second is that Karen turned me onto the practice of gratitude. Oh, my! What a game changer this is!

Simply put, I try each day to list at least five things I'm grateful for in that day. Most days the list could get quite lengthy, truth be told. Other days, when I'm tired, don't feel well, have had a 'challenging' day, it might not be so easy. But once I begin my list, my outlook on my life changes dramatically and I'm sure my blood pressure goes down. Yeah. As simple as that!

Because, you know what? We really are, each and every one of us, blessed beyond imagining. We just don't always recognize it because we become so wrapped up in ourselves, in the drama and negativity of life instead of the beauty, simplicity and love which beg us to claim them as our very own. And believe me, I am guilty as charged! Our world is saturated with drama and negativity. All you have to do is turn on a cable news station and your heart turns sour within one thirty second soundbite. But ... the choice is yours. You can wallow in that stuff, or you can replace it with the practice gratitude.

As a result of that course, I began the practice of 30 days of gratitude in 2011. I posted my first gratitude journal on Flickr. Last year, I posted it on my personal blog, Camper, and am doing the same thing this year. So ... I'm going to challenge you this month to take a photo every single day of something that you're grateful for or that represents something you're grateful for and post it on our Flickr page. With each photo, please share with us a brief description of what you are grateful for on that day. Each Saturday, we'll choose from the photos in our collective Gratitude Journal for Focus on You.

For our Instagram friends, you can post over there using the #naphopomo and #focusingonlife hashtags. For the month of November we will be posting our weekly IG mosaic on Sundays. And be sure to add your IG photos to the FOL Flickr phoneography page so those of us who don't visit IG regularly can enjoy your beautiful work.

And then, don't stop there! Why do this only in November? Continue to practice gratitude each and every day. Some days it might be as simple as 'I didn't have a headache today' or 'My son had clean socks'. Whatever it is, find five things that you are grateful for and contemplate their purpose in your life.

Gratitude unlocks the fullness of life. It turns what we have into enough, and more. It turns denial into acceptance, chaos to order, confusion to clarity. It can turn a meal into a feast, a house into a home, a stranger into a friend. Gratitude makes sense of our past, brings peace for today and creates a vision for tomorrow.

                                                                                                 ~ Melody Beattie