Gratitude Practices

For the next 33 days, you’re invited to cultivate an attitude of gratitude! Each day AM & PM choose one exercise from each section a Time to Read and a Time to Reflect in any order. Mix it up as to how you choose to practice gratitude and feel free to share with any friends or family, as we all benefit individually and collectively as we practice and amplify gratitude in our world!

A time to read

To be grateful is to recognise the love of God in everything He has given us–and He has given us everything.
Thomas Merton, writer and poet

 

Day 1

“Gratitude is the fairest blossom which springs from the soul.”
Henry Ward Beecher

Day 2

“Gratitude turns what we have into enough.”
Anonymous

Day 3

“Gratitude is a powerful catalyst for happiness. It’s the spark that lights a fire of joy in your soul.”
Amy Collette

Day 4

“Gratitude makes sense of our past, brings peace for today, and creates a vision for tomorrow.”
Melody Beattie

Day 5

“Gratitude is when memory is stored in the heart and not in the mind.”
Lionel Hampton

Day 6

“Gratitude is not only the greatest of virtues but the parent of all others.”
Marcus Tullius Cicero





Day 7

“We often take for granted the very things that most deserve our gratitude.”
Cynthia Ozick


Day 8

“I would maintain that thanks are the highest form of thought and that gratitude is happiness doubled by wonder.”
Gilbert C. Chesterton

Day 9

“Gratitude will shift you to a higher frequency, and you will attract much better things.”
Rhonda Byrne

Day 10

“When I started counting my blessings, my whole life turned around.”
Willie Nelson

Day 11

“Gratitude helps you to grow and expand; gratitude brings joy and laughter into your life and into the lives of all those around you.”
Eileen Caddy

Day 12

“Two kinds of gratitude: The sudden kind we feel for what we take; the larger kind we feel for what we give.”
Edwin Arlington Robinson

Day 13

“Gratitude is the sweetest thing in a seekers life – in all human life. If there is gratitude in your heart, then there will be tremendous sweetness in your eyes.”
Sri Chinmoy

Day 14

“As with all commandments, gratitude is a description of a successful mode of living. The thankful heart opens our eyes to a multitude of blessings that continually surround us.”
James E. Faust

Day 15

“The more grateful I am, the more beauty I see.”
Mary Davis

Day 16

“There is a calmness to a life lived in gratitude, a quiet joy.”
Ralph H. Blum

Day 17

“Gratitude is the most exquisite form of courtesy.”
Jacques Maritain

Day 18

“The root of joy is gratefulness.”
David Steindl-Rast

Day 19

“Gratitude unlocks the fullness of life. It turns what we have into enough, and more. It turns denial into acceptance, chaos to order, confusion to clarity. It can turn a meal into a feast, a house into a home, a stranger into a friend.”
Melody Beattie

Day 20

“We can only be said to be alive in those moments when our hearts are conscious of our treasures.”
Thornton Wilder

Day 21

“If you concentrate on finding whatever is good in every situation, you will discover that your life will suddenly be filled with gratitude, a feeling that nurtures the soul.”
Rabbi Harold Kushner

Day 22

“Be thankful for what you have; you’ll end up having more. If you concentrate on what you don’t have, you will never, ever have enough.”
Oprah Winfrey

Day 23 

“As we express our gratitude, we must never forget that the highest appreciation is not to utter words, but to live by them.”
John F. Kennedy

Day 24

“I looked around and thought about my life. I felt grateful. I noticed every detail. That is the key to time travel. You can only move if you are actually in the moment. You have to be where you are to get where you need to go.”
Amy Poehler

Day 25

“Gratitude for the present moment and the fullness of life now is the true prosperity.”
Eckhart Tolle

Day 26

“Gratitude is the sign of noble souls.”
Aesop

Day 27

“Feeling gratitude and not expressing it is like wrapping a present and not giving it.”
William Arthur Ward

Day 28

“Develop an attitude of gratitude, and give thanks for everything that happens to you, knowing that every step forward is a step toward achieving something bigger and better than your current situation.”
Brian Tracy

Day 29

Being thankful is not always experienced as a natural state of existence, we must work at it, akin to a type of strength training for the heart.”
Larissa Gomez

Day 30

“Today I choose to live with gratitude for the love that fills my heart, the peace that rests within my spirit, and the voice of hope that says all things are possible.”
Anonymous

Day 31

“We can only be said to be alive in those moments when our hearts are conscious of our treasures.”
Thornton Wilde

Day 32

“Opening your eyes to more of the world around you can deeply enhance your gratitude practice.”
Derrick Carpenter

Day 33

“Nothing is more honourable than a grateful heart.”
Lucius Annaeus Seneca

A Time to Reflect

 

Gratitude Inventory

Create a list of 100 things that you’re grateful for. If it helps, divide your list into different categories, such as assets (things you own), people (your relationships), qualities (personal qualities and character traits), experiences (place you’ve visited and things you’ve done), and so on. Do a few a day so as not to overwhelm yourself.

Gratitude for Gadgets and Tools

Take a moment to think of all the gadgets and tools which make your life easier and more enjoyable. Include your laptop computer, your coffee maker, your TV, your juicer, your refrigerator, and so on.

Gratitude Questions

  • What touched me today?

  • Who or what inspired me today?

  • What made me smile today?

  • What’s the best thing that happened today?

  • Find gratitude in your challenges 

  • Find the lessons in the challenges and be grateful for what it taught or is teaching you

Gratitude Rock

Carry this rock around in your pocket, leave it on your desk where you will see it throughout your day, or even wear it on a chain around your neck or your wrist.

Whenever you see it or touch it, pause to think about at least one thing you are grateful for. Whether it’s something as small as the sun shining down on you in this moment or as large as the job that allows you to feed yourself or your family, just think of one thing that brings you joy or fulfilment.

When you take the stone out of your pocket or off of your body at the end of the day, take a moment to remember the things that you were grateful for throughout the day. When you put it on or in your pocket again in the morning, repeat this process to remember what you were grateful for yesterday.

Gratitude Prompts

Gratitude prompts are a great way to get started, continue your practice, or kick-start a stalled gratitude practice. This is also a relatively simple exercise, with only one instruction: fill in the blank!

These prompts provide several ways to begin a gratitude statement, with infinite possibilities for completion. They cover multiple senses, colours, people, and things. The goal is to identify at least three things in each category that you are thankful for.

The prompts include:

  • I’m grateful for three things I hear:

  • I’m grateful for three things I see:

  • I’m grateful for three things I smell:

  • I’m grateful for three things I touch/feel:

  • I’m grateful for these three things I taste:

  • I’m grateful for these three blue things:

  • I’m grateful for these three animals/birds:

  • I’m grateful for these three friends:

  • I’m grateful for these three teachers:

  • I’m grateful for these three family members:

  • I’m grateful for these three things in my home:

  • I’m grateful for these three people who hired me:

  • Etc.

Gratitude Collage

This is similar to the gratitude journal, except you are going to take pictures of all the things you are grateful for. This gives you the opportunity to visualise your gratitude.

Try taking a picture of one thing you are grateful for every day for a week. Notice how you feel. Take a look back at the pictures every week. You don’t have to find grandiose things to be grateful for. A simple picture of a flower will do.

The more you do this the easier it will be for you to spot out the things you are grateful for. You will no longer take these simple things for granted.

Perhaps you will document multiple pictures in a day. After a given time period put all your pictures together in a collage and simply be grateful for all that you have.








ABCs of Grateful Living:

I go through the alphabet and note for each letter the first word that comes to my mind. Then, I try to make a connection between that word and my practice of grateful living. It’s a kind of game I play with myself…









Gratitude Jar 

Create a gratitude jar this year. Any time you experience a poignant moment of gratitude, write it on a piece of paper and put it in a jar. At the end of the year then take time to re-read all that you’ve been grateful for; you’ll be surprised by how many things you’d forgotten that you were grateful for.

Gratitude Meditation 

Let yourself sit quietly and at ease. Allow your body to be relaxed and open, your breath natural, your heart easy. Begin the practise of gratitude by feeling how year after year you have cared for your own life. Now let yourself begin to acknowledge all that has supported you in this care:

With gratitude, I remember the people, animals, plants, insects, creatures of the sky and sea, air and water, fire and earth, all whose joyful exertion blesses my life every day.

With gratitude, I remember the care and labour of a thousand generations of elders and ancestors who came before me.

I offer my gratitude for the safety and well-being I have been given.

I offer my gratitude for the blessing of this earth I have been given.

I offer my gratitude for the measure of health I have been given.

I offer my gratitude for the family and friends I have been given.

I offer my gratitude for the community I have been given.

I offer my gratitude for the teachings and lessons I have been given.

I offer my gratitude for the life I have been given.

Just as we are grateful for our blessings, so we can be grateful for the blessings of others.

Continue to breathe gently. Bring to mind someone you care about, someone it is easy to rejoice for. Picture them and feel the natural joy you have for their well-being, for their happiness and success. With each breath, offer them your grateful, heartfelt wishes:

May you be joyful.

May your happiness increase.

May you not be separated from great happiness.

May your good fortune and the causes for your joy and happiness increase.

Sense the sympathetic joy and caring in each phrase. When you feel some degree of natural gratitude for the happiness of this loved one, extend this practise to another person you care about. Recite the same simple phrases that express your heart’s intention.

Then gradually open the meditation to include neutral people, difficult people, and even enemies until you extend sympathetic joy to all beings everywhere, young and old, near and far.

Practice dwelling in joy until the deliberate effort of practice drops away and the intentions of joy blend into the natural joy of your own wise heart.

Gratitude Music

Look at these photographs while listening to these beautiful pieces especially composed by
Karim Bekdjilai, both titled Gratitude. What kind of gratitude do these pictures evoke in you? Allow yourself to be in an attitude of gratitude as you listen.

Gratitude Videos

God, thank You for all of the blessings in my life and the vision with which to recognise them.

Acknowledgement 

Grateful thanks for all the various contributors and sources unknown.