Today is Thanksgiving Day here in the U.S., and my Facebook news feed has been filled with people giving thanks for all kinds of blessings in their lives. It’s marvelous to read all these notes of gratitude and thanksgiving. Can you imagine what the world might be like if every day was filled with this much gratitude?
For those of you who accepted the gratitude challenge for the month of November, how’s it going? Have you noticed any shift in your outlook on life as you have focused on all you have to be grateful for over these last few weeks?
It’s not quite the end of the month, so the challenge is still in place, but I am noticing today how this practice has been affecting me this month. Overall, life is really good right now, and there have been so many days that my heart is just overflowing with so many things to be grateful for that it is hard to choose just one to list in my Facebook status for the day. But even on the hard days (and there are still enough of those), it can still be hard to find just one thing to list because even on those days I find that there is still so much that I am grateful for.
I’m also noticing that the things that are rising to the top of the list for me are different than those that came up last year in many ways. Last year, most of my things I was grateful for were specific items, like daffodils (my favorite flower), a sunny day, or a favorite food. I still list some of those things this year, but I am noticing that there are more days this year that I am finding myself grateful for more abstract things like lifelong learning or creativity. These are things that it can be so easy for me to take for granted because they are just part of how the world is for me, but can you imagine what life would be like without creativity? What if you could never learn another new thing?
Even more amazing to me is that I am finding that some of my hard and painful times are even coming up on my mental list of things I am grateful for. I have not listed any of those on Facebook yet because they are a bit too personal for that venue, but I have been surprised at how often they have come up for me this month. It’s not that I have decided that those experiences were actually fun or enjoyable, but I am realizing how much I learned and grown through these challenges, and I am grateful to the benefits these things have brought me.
What are you experiencing in your own month of gratitude? I’d love to hear about your experience!