THANKFUL FRIDAY

For many people, today marks the first day of their 21-day gratitude challenge. You may see these challenges posted in memes throughout all the social media formats. It is a daily gratitude practice that leads up to what Americans consider to be the most important day of gratitude, Thanksgiving. It is a lovely way to celebrate the month of November. I believe it also a great way to start a regular habit of daily gratitude. This is not how my gratitude practice began. My practice had nothing to do with Thanksgiving and I had to go to a real dark, woe is me place before realizing I needed a gratitude practice. There was a lot of digging deep in those days and building up of good habits, habits that helped to keep me alive after Chris passed. Some might call those habits life skills, but all of the writing, photography, and the continued quest for joy all started from a simple daily gratitude practice.

I’m not going to lie; the month of October was not an easy one. There was a lot of traveling. There were many tedious and stressful moments. There was illness..or is illness. Michael and I are still coughing and I really have no idea how much more snot I can blow out of my nose. I have an endless supply of mucous right now. But even though October was difficult I can pick out something from each day that made me smile or laugh. Each day there was something I was grateful for. Kleenex. A sunset. Pain au chocolat. Time with a good friend. My gratitude list is long and continues to grow.

Tonight, will be the first Friday in weeks where I’ve slept in my own bed. I will get up tomorrow morning and go about my usual Saturday chore routine, slowly bringing in some normalcy. Michael has been taking care of grocery shopping and laundry and the general household maintenance while I was away. There was a time in our relationship when leaving him to take care of all the things would leave me feeling guilty. There was also a time when Michael was very vocal about being inconvenienced. We’ve both had to do some work to change this way of thinking and behavior. I am grateful that while we might be slow learners, we are learning to work together as a team. I am grateful for Michael’s help during all the chaos of last month. I don’t think that without my gratitude practice, I would have been able to recognize his help in picking up the slack while I was gone.

There’s a lot of good things I wouldn’t notice and would go missing without my gratitude practice. There’s a lot good stuff that I would take for granted. When I remember the person I was before I started the practice, I cringe. Not only was I unhappy, I just didn’t like myself. I’m embarrassed by that past version of me. Sure, I could give dozens of excuses for my unhappiness like finances and living conditions and devastating loss that I just didn’t know how to handle. But my unhappiness leaked out of me and onto others. That feels unforgivable. I felt ugly and recognizing that ugliness, I knew I had to make a change. I could not change my living conditions or too much of my finances. I could not bring back that which was lost. But I could change my mindset. The gratitude practice was the beginning to that change in mindset.

Just something to consider if you’re thinking about starting your own gratitude practice.