Being can be a value and a north. Being grateful requires training, special attention so that life does not pass you by. This training does not stop, it is not achieved once and forever, it is moving to the next day like the , so that we can glimpse a new gratitude each time. Being grateful is well received in most social environments, it promotes communication, creates a climate of warmth among people and is an attitude for life.
Within what we can voluntarily choose, we can choose how to live whatever we have to live, how we want to do it, what guides us, what we value and some forms of that living. This is where gratitude has a nice place. In the election. Intentions and attitudes can be chosen. We can have the intention to be a grateful person and work on it.
We can have the attitude of a grateful person and practice it whenever possible. Sometimes I think there is a lifestyle based on gratitude. I was lucky to meet grateful people, I learned and learn from them and in many seasons of my life I have been able to be a grateful person. I can still continue being that.
If we can begin to exercise gratitude somewhere, it is by treasuring moments that are valuable to us, being present, with full attention, connecting when they happen, noticing, feeling, perceiving. It is possible for us to remember moments, knowing that the past, for which we are grateful, is behind us in our history, knowing that it will not return, that it will not be the same again and that we can also be happy today for having lived that experience. On another occasion we can delve into the connection with internal experiences full of “nostalgia” when remembering a previous happiness, that is, about how a beautiful moment when it is remembered can be colored, and in fact is colored, with some other emotion different from the original. , lost, of course and not without power to be grateful. Living a beautiful moment and being able to remember it is reason enough to be grateful.
The and reliving of an episode that we wish to thank is a second step. We can put an image on the screen of the mind, we can return to a moment that is not happening today and that we can summon, we can let an event appear, a situation that we like, that is comforting to us. We can see what we feel now in the body, where we feel it, we can remember with love and openness in the experience of remembering and giving thanks.
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Being grateful can connect us to the simple, not so simple and valuable things in life. It can help us be present in experiences in an active way, aware of being alive and the possibilities that living entails.
What are you thankful for today?
Take a moment, a pause in your day to connect with the daily miracles, that if we don’t stop, they pass us by. The micro moments. The casualties. The meetings. The beauties. What goes unnoticed if we go like horses with blinders in the daily routine.
The moment to start the exercise of gratitude is now. Write down 5 things you are grateful for, the famous idea of lGratitude is very useful to notice, to stop and see, to give ourselves a break and distance ourselves from everyday demands, from the conditioning of our history, from distraction. Write down 5 things you are grateful for and put together your gratitude journal, where you can see what you value, what matters to you, what moves you, what you pay attention to. This diary can be transformed into a gratitude challenge for a certain time, it can be transformed into a gratitude game to do with family or friends, where each person can propose a gratitude and share it with the rest. Or you can put together your jar of gratitude: in an empty jar, from January 1st and throughout the year, I wrote on small colored papers, events, people, situations, unexpected miracles, lucky accidents, unexpected joys, surprises, loves, exams, compliments, and everything you want to be grateful for, open it on the last day of the year and see what you were able to treasure, noticing what you feel now having given yourself that luxury: the luxury of perceiving, being present and grateful for what happens in your life.
Play to notice what works, what is beautiful, what is moving, what goes well (with effort or without effort). Exercise creativity to focus attention on what is missing. And of course, say thank you, really mean it, silently, with reverence or words.