I committed the last 30 days to finding something to be thankful for every day.
It seems like a no-brainer because aren’t all of us finding the gratitude in our lives every day? I thought so but was surprised to find some days it was very easy and other days extremely challenging.
I obligated myself to posting each day on Twitter and was grateful for the accountability that came with that obligation.
As the days passed I began to realize my little experiment was taking me somewhere I didn’t expect. It was taking me deeper into my daily grind and my thankless attitude that often accompanied it.
Every day gave me an opportunity to find the beauty in the ordinary and even in the ugly. It allowed me to reflect on the small things that light up my world. It challenged me to see where I was taking life for granted and begin to create a seismic shift within myself that will change the landscape of my life for the better.
Gratitude is not just an attitude. It’s a state of being that softens the edges around our energetic body and our physical hearts and lungs, allowing us to expand to our full capacity. From that place of fullness, of enoughness, we begin to offer ourselves and our gifts to the world a little more generously. Not surprisingly it also allows us to receive more than ever before.
Here’s what I found to be grateful for the last 30 days. If you have any to add or your own list I’d love to see it.
{gratitude list}
Day 1: I am grateful for my failures because they make me try harder.
Day 2: I am grateful for the thumping in my chest that allows me to enjoy another day.
Day 3: I am grateful for that first sliver of sunlight that kisses my cheek and warms my soul.
Day 4: I am grateful to the universe for providing what I need before I even ask.
Day 5: I am grateful for my legs that support me, lift me, and move me.
Day 6: Thank you SEA for your salt and your spray and your crash and your roar and your whisper that calls me home.
Day 7: Thankful for my laugh lines that get deeper and more wrinkly each year.
Day 8: Thankful for today’s new moon that reminds me everything has a shadow side, a yin, a pause, a time to look within.
Day 9: Thankful for the days I am very very tired. It means I am very very alive.
Day 10: Grateful for relationship {the state of being connected} to myself, to my loved ones, to all living things, to all human beings.
Day 11: Thankful for this compass {my heart} that I can turn to when I get lost and find my way back to true north.
Day 12: Grateful for my health: physical, mental, emotional.
Day 13: Grateful for family who acts as a mirror and reflects back to me what I need to work on.
Day 14: Grateful for all the aliveness that throbs in and around me.
Day 15: Thankful to yOgA for improving the relationship between my head and my heart.
Day 16: Grateful for Sound: palm leaves scratching at my window, church bells in the distance, an airplane above. The sounds of Now.
Day 17: Thank you ARMS for holding love, reaching out, and pulling life closer.
Day 18: Grateful to my friend A.R. who once upon a time said: “I think you’re ready for The Power of Now.”
Day 19: Grateful for the steam that rises from my tea and warms my face.
Day 20: Thank you Today for giving me opportunities to learn, grow, thrive, love and live deeper.
Day 21: Grateful for the roof over my head and the love in my heart.
Day 22: Thank you Mother Nature for today’s full moon and her radiant energy.
Day 23: Grateful for conversations that go where we’re afraid to go and unearth true connection.
Day 24: Grateful for the questions that have no answers, but in their place a quiet knowing that the question itself is what matters.
Day 25: Thankful for Laughter {giggles, belly laughs, heart roars, and those weird laugh/cry combos}.
Day 26: Thankful for Hope {that small ember of light within that never dies out}.
Day 27: Grateful for Breath {that helps us turn the impossible into the possible one breath at a time}.
Day 28: Thank you Today for giving me the gift of the Present.
Day 29: Thankful for pain. It’s one of the best teachers I’ve ever had.
Day 30: Grateful for Endings {the wrapping paper for Beginnings which we only find when we look inside}.
monique minahan 