Five Ways to Deepen Your Gratitude Practice
We are now in the Autumn of 2021. Schools are in session, people are returning to work, and while a healthy dose of caution is still vital, we can start looking forward to a holiday season of spooky times, turkey dinners, joy, and cheer.
Right?
After the last year and a half, feeling grateful for gathering with family and friends feels simultaneously marvelous and malevolent. A phenomenon that Alina Bas calls “Passive-Aggressive Gratitude.”
“I love Halloween, but trunk or treating sucks!”
or
“I love that we are finally getting together for Thanksgiving, but I hate that I still need to mask up to go to the store.”
No one likes the situation that got us here. However, since you are reading this right now, you have a device capable of internet access, connectivity, and a location where you can leisurely read Medium articles.
Pretty damn amazing.
This act of wholehearted gratitude is a practice I started committing to every morning after feeling the pressure of living on limited resources so that I could focus on starting my business.
I call it aggressive gratitude, being grateful for the things you love so aggressively that any annoyances are comparatively trivial (and, therefore, much more manageable).
When you practice aggressive gratitude and separate the positive feelings from any unpleasantness, and you might wind up with something like this:
“I love Halloween! I love seeing all the costume ideas, picking out the best assortment of treats, and decorating my home and car! All the prep work gives me something to look forward to every day, and I get to share my pinterest board with my bestie!”
or
“I love Thanksgiving dinners! I am excited to get a turkey from the supermarket this year. My family has had a year’s worth of practice at zoom calls so that we won’t run into technical difficulties! Because I’m still home, I’m going to start planning the menu and building the budget so that we can enjoy this special day to the fullest extent!”
Aggressive gratitude is feeling genuinely grateful for something and acting congruently.
Here are five ways to be aggressively grateful every day:
- Look at the week ahead and write down every event that you are looking forward to. Start visualizing the outfit you will wear, your food, and what you will drink. How can you make that event even more special? Feel grateful for being able to experience these events that bring joy to your life.
- Write a postcard to someone you like but haven’t spoken to in a while, like an old friend who moved away or a coworker who got a new job. Remember a few great things about them and tell them. Maybe this is what you needed to bring you closer together again.
- Do you have a significant other, a pet, or a plant? Write down something you love about them or a way in which you are proud that they are in your life. Then show it to someone else.
- Do you love where you live? Do you have specific spots that mean something special to you? Write about them, take pictures, and share them with someone else. The best part of gratitude is sharing your joy and passion. So be vocal about it!
- Does one area of your house stress you out because it’s constantly a mess? Take one hour to clean that one area Marie Kondo style. Bring joy and organization to the space, and thank it for providing shelter for you. Gratitude is an action, and love is a verb. Even if the house doesn’t understand what you are doing, you set up a positive mindset full of gratitude for what you typically take for granted. Thank your limbs for working correctly, for having enough cash to invest in some boxes, and for the time in the day that you can dedicate to this one task.
There are so many ways to practice genuine gratitude once you realize that simply being here, alive, in this time, is a gift. You have the power to remake your situation because you are living on this earth.
Which of these tips was the best take-away for you? Let me know in the comments!
