Throughout the Mindful Life Journal each day you are asked to write what you are grateful for, twice a day. In the beginning, it’s pretty easy. The big things that you take for granted are brought to the forefront and you concentrate on them. As the days go by, it can get harder and harder to think of what makes you grateful, especially if nothing has happened in your day that you find the need to be grateful.
This is where it gets interesting, because you have to really think. And when you really think, you realize the world itself is full of things to be grateful for. Especially in my life. I’ve had the blessing to have a comfortable life. A wonderful family, always having a home, and really wanting for nothing. I have a job I like most of the time, though uncertainty has been a part of my working life for quite a bit too (but let’s not dwell on that right now). I have so much to be grateful for – and sometimes the simplest sunshiney day is where I find my gratitude.
And so, when the first week’s journaling focused on gratitude I admit I was a bit less thatn thrilled. I wanted to get on to the more meaty parts of mindfulness. But I realized gratitude is at the center of mindfulness. Being grateful for the present and all that it is, is mindfulness. The prompts were larger, more focused. I wrote for five days about the people, skils, abilies, mentors, homes, careers and nature that inspire gratitude within me. It was an eye-opening exercise and made me look at gratitude in a different light. I’m glad I did it. And I’m mostly glad that I truly do have so, so much to be grateful for.
