Tag Archives: gratitude intention

My 2018 Challenge: To Maintain Gratitude

readying to write
photo by Marv

Two days into 2018, wrapped in a blanket and typing, the headlines blaring with hard-to-ignore news, I am aware that while I embrace the concept of gratitude, it does not always embrace me. Like all humans, I am not automatically wired to feel grateful.

You would think that after keeping a daily gratitude diary for a year and then writing this gratitude blog for two years, that today’s post would come more readily. I believe that in spite of the weather or news or state of mind, each of us has a story of gratitude to tell. Some are dramatic and compelling like my Mitzvah story of John fixing my flat tire. Others are hidden, less apparent and need to be teased out with intention to seek and mine what one experiences.

When I ignore or forget about intention, I slide right by the signposts of gratitude such as a quiver in the gut as I experience an empathic moment, a smile on my face as a clerk jokes about offering me a job, a moment of calm as I scan the hill laced with white snow outside my window.

Each of these moments holds a story. Each of these moments, were I to sit with pen in hand and describe the details—the what, where, and experience of the encounter— would result in opening and deepening a sense of gratitude.

Take for example, the job offer. The morning before the encounter, I called Whole Foods in search of a digestive product hard to come by. To my delight, I spoke with a person who informed me they had the product and would set it aside with my name on it. That afternoon, I followed an engaging man who opened a large drawer and began to rumble through, saying, “Likely it’s on the bottom; it always is.”

As he began to sort and sift, he moved a standard sized bottle wrapped with a paper note aside. I had the instinct that the bottle could be mine. “Check that bottle right there, please,” I said.

Sure enough, there was my name— “Faye” written on the note. “How would you like a job working here,” he joked. We both laughed. It was a moment of shared gratitude, a moment of levity I sorely needed. More, and here’s the reflection piece, I was grateful to feel and acknowledge my intuition.

In theory, gratitude is always present and available if one can focus and prime the intention. One of my main sources of learning and inspiration and one that I recommend is the https://www.mindful.org website to which I subscribe. They suggest a weekly writing practice two or three times a week. They unequivocally state:

elaborating in detail about a particular person or event for which you are grateful carries more benefits than a list of many things.

I find this to be true. When I take the time to write out a story, in effect to tell myself a gratitude story and spend time reflecting on its meaning, I deepen my sense of gratitude. I am grateful to you, my readers, who motivate me to show up and bring my intention to practice gratitude to the blog page.

 

 

 

 

The Discipline of a Gratitude Practice

The-Beach-At-Sainte-Adresse Claude Oscar Monet

The-Beach-At-Sainte-Adresse
Claude Oscar Monet

I find that gratitude is not a given. It needs to be courted and noticed to be experienced. Especially in this finger-pulsing, talky tech age, when speed and the Internet dominate our lifestyles, we need to consider alternative ways of being connected to our minds and hearts.

Consider an average day. If you are a doer like me, you fill your day with work, relationships, personal and home chores. How often do you give pause, take a deep breath and think or say aloud—I am grateful for….

More likely, you take a coffee break, check e-mail messages, text, call a friend or take a walk to get the Fitbit steps up. We pursue the tech rhythm—fast, quick, efficient, or so we believe. But what of the alternative— a conscious effort to step back, to pause and take a breath and reflect upon an event or experience which might elicit appreciation and bring lift to the spirit. For some, three deep breaths can engender thankfulness for what is given.

As a child, I was introduced to piano lessons at the tutelage of Miss Burke, a rigorous and proud New England Conservatory graduate who lived and taught in a studio apartment in Portland’s Longfellow Square. A dutiful student, I practiced an hour daily, arrived at her studio once a week, nervous to please and show competence. Miss Burke was strict about what made for good performance. All these years later, I am grateful for the lessons of discipline and its ability to harness and define a space and time for practice.

During my 82nd year, I initiated a daily writing practice in a gratitude journal. The first few months, I felt like a novice, reminiscent of my beginner self at seven years, approaching the notes of gratitude just as I did piano music, substituting the pen for the keyboard, practicing the felt sense of gratitude.

Nowadays, my sense of gratitude flows more easily, imbedded as a result of a year of writing. Of course, I sometimes need to pause, to prompt my mind, to scan my day, to consider the question— perhaps, with a list as I did last night after a too-full day. The challenge to recall and name each event helped me to focus and reflect on the event’s meaning and its effect.

When gratitude arrives spontaneously, in the moment, a sense of warmth and excitement ripples my gut. I literally say to myself—I am grateful to have you arrive—my signal to pause, to stop the action, to take note of the whole experience— such as how a friend’s intuitive comment resonates, causing me to feel less alone or how I attune to the seashore’s calling at  the scenic edge of Monet’s painting, The Beach at Saint Adresse.

The sense of gratitude is deeply personal and can be deeply felt. It must be noted, experienced and appreciated to become a daily practice. To know it is to hold it.