One of my favorite slogans is Where you set your gaze grows. This reminds me that I always have a choice where to set my attention, and my time, and that my life will bloom in that direction. These difficult days, it’s easy to rest our gaze on worry, fear, despair and horror as we watch events unfolding in the Ukraine and in so many other parts of the world including our own back yard.. But we can only really serve others, when we can show up as our best selves.
This is where self-care comes in.
A gratitude practice is one powerful self care practice that can help. It can redirect your thinking back to peace, and back to a solution. This isn’t to pretend that bad things aren’t happening, but instead to fortify our resolve, and practice real self care, so we can show up in the world as the best versions of ourselves.
I’ve been keeping a daily gratitude list with a few friends for about eight years now. Every day we send each other ten things we are grateful for (I know ten can seem like a lot, and yes, you can repeat items). Our group shares triumphs, people, pets, and also moments of growth, natural beauty, family, health and on. With each item someone shares, my heart grows a little more in that direction, like a plant craning itself towards the sun, and a little less towards whatever I just read online, or heard from so and so.
When I first joined this list, it was hard for me to think of even one thing I was grateful for. I was in the beginning stages of a steep climb back to health after an acute health crisis. My dark mood and physical pain made it hard to access gratitude, but little by little, day by day I started to reorient my thinking with the help of this list. I learned gratitude is like a muscle, and with practice it gets stronger.I started going on morning walks in search of gratitude. I started noticing things, like buds poking up from the frozen earth (like I saw this AM), or a child’s laughter, or the fact that it just felt good to breathe, or a kind text from my sister, etc. I felt like a gratitude hunter. And over the years, each morning when I fill out this list, the items come faster like a rush, sometimes it feels like a prayer. And, always I feel better afterwards, more able, more willing to be helpful both to myself and to others.
So let’s try a simple gratitude practice starting today: Describe your favorite food and why you are grateful for it. Then maybe go enjoy a nourishing bite 🙂
With GRATITUDE,
Lisa
