How might practicing gratitude affect your world? How might it create a better world for your children and grandchildren to inherit? Photo by Shaakheh on Unsplash

Gratitude Is Not the Same as Thankfulness

Our everyday lives often present difficult, stressful challenges. It is easy to understand why those challenges and the uncertainty and dangers we hear about each day generate feelings like fear, anxiety, frustration, isolation, and sadness. These are precisely the reasons why starting a daily practice of gratitude can make a big difference in our quality of life and the peacefulness with which we meet each day.

Gratitude is not the same as thankfulness. Gratitude does not come as a response to something you have been given or earned. That is being thankful. Gratitude is a much deeper way of living that comes from acute awareness of the present moment. This is why a Gratitude Mindset is so powerful.

For example, think of the millions of moments and people and circumstances that have come together for you to be here, right now, alive in this moment. Stop and consider this for a minute. Look back at this last year and recall a memorable moment. If just one event was slightly different, or one person made a different decision, or one storm had a different trajectory, how would this moment be changed?

And, of course, you can go back even further. What if one ancestor made a different choice? Or what if an illness or injury occurred? What if they had died before producing offspring, thus ending the branch of the family line that now includes you?

It is quite an amazing miracle that we are who we are, where we are, and doing what we are. Gratitude is the deep feeling we get when we acknowledge that things and life are pretty amazing. In response, we choose to meet our lives with an open-heartedness and presence that comes from that recognition. A formal gratitude practice helps us cultivate those qualities and pay attention to the many sources of joy and peace all around us, even when the day is chaotic.

The practice steps below are simple and can be done individually or as a family.

Choose a time each day to sit quietly and write down three things you are grateful for. Whatever you notice that day is fine. There is only one rule — you cannot repeat anything from previous days or weeks. If you notice the beautiful colors of a summer flower or the delicious crunch of your favorite apple today, you cannot use them again. Keep looking. How many days, weeks, or months can you keep this up? If you use this practice with your family, create a Family Gratitude Journal and leave it on the table. It may become a treasured keepsake over time!

Pay close attention to your body sensations whenever you write or reflect on your gratitude. What are you noticing as you bring these moments to mind? Warmth, lightness, tingling, openness, softening, etc.

After practicing gratitude for a few weeks, what do you notice about how you are meeting the challenges and opportunities in your life? Has it affected your choices? Thoughts? How might gratitude change the world?

Thanks for reading. Please share your thoughts and comments below. This article is excerpted from *Humony Mindset: Change the World by Changing Your Mindset*, available globally on Amazon in print, Kindle, and audiobook formats.

To learn more about how the Humony Mindset can benefit you, your family, and the future for your children and grandchildren, subscribe now to the growing Humony Mindset YouTube channel.