Tuesday, September 29, 2015

Five Easy Ways to Gratitude


I’ve done a lot of work in cleaning out the yucky parts of my heart to make room for joy this year. One of the things I’ve found is that gratitude clears a wide path for joy. It’s as if in seeing that we have much, we are given even more good.

I'm sharing today a few of the things that I do to bring myself back to gratitude and therefore joy. These are all easy practices that could be done almost at anytime and anywhere.



1. Cleaning


Doing the dishes, sweeping the floor, and scrubbing the toilet can be an exercise in gratitude if we let it. It’s when I clean up my fridge that I see I have so many things to eat. It’s in putting little boys’ clothes on hangers that I can smile for the little stinkers who made a cloud of dirt settle on that fabric just the day prior. It’s in tidying up books I can love the authors who’ve dedicated themselves to the words. It’s funny. I never feel like buying more clothes after a day of catching up on laundry. Sometimes even a purge or reinvention of things we have on hand can give us delight, all without reaching into our wallets.

We've reached critical mass at our home. It's as if we took a path out and now we hit then end and have to return to the trailhead. This is the first year that we've had way more things leave our house than come in. I haven't been able to purge all at once as suggested in The Life-Changing Magic of Tidying Up, but we are getting there. After each chunk of purging, I've been truly, truly amazed at how different I felt about the things that remained in my closet, book shelves, the boys' room and the garage. The things that no longer "sparked joy" were getting in the way of the things that were. When we removed the things that were no longer meant for our home, the things that are seemed to come to life. I think this is true for the things we store internally as well, and I wonder how much we clean up internally when we are busy tending to the external weeds at our feet and hands.





2. Praying for others


It was just this year that I started regularly praying with my kids at night. With the twins, it’s a very simple prayer. They are usually busy setting up their stuffed animals and asking for their fifth drink of water. With Thomas, it’s a little something more. Whether we pray about our day or say an Our Father, we always pray at the end for those who are lonely or have little.

Without prompting, Thomas joined in saying the Our Father last week. I hadn't realized that he had it memorized since I just say it to him and when he prays he tends to do free form shout-outs to God about his friends, his brothers, his dad, and Legos. It hit me that Thomas might find mention of bread odd in a prayer, so I explained to him what asking for our daily bread meant. It hit me there in that retelling of "just enough, not more". Of course it is important to think long term and big picture. It is important to have extra savings and a plan for retirement. But at the end of the day--if we had enough for THAT day, our hearts should be thankful. It's this art of contentment that I'm learning as I age and it is a much happier place than the frenetic hustle for tomorrow's fruit. As my favorite poem states:

"Oh, leave tomorrow's fruit to providence

and dote upon the bud--from which is spun

a leafing-out to love in increments, "






It’s in meditating on the true suffering around us that we’ve taken more pause in our lives to think of those around us who are suffering, even those we don’t know who are suffering. Our extremely simple and humble prayer (think one or two sentences) puts into perspective the troubles of our day. It is all too cliche to say but true. There has never been a night I went to bed without shelter, clothes, or food. I have very much to be grateful for and also to be a good steward of.

Of course, actually helping others is even better. But when you don't know where to help or when to help or how to help or it's the end of the day and even your own life needs help -- one little prayer is good enough, is very good indeed.


3. Margins & Pauses


What good is the hammock if we do not lay in it? What good is the speaker system without the occasional weekend dance party with the family? What good is the hydrangea bush without a bouquet on the table? We can’t fully enjoy the things we already have if we are always rushing, rushing, rushing without margin.




Sometimes we are so busy working for the next good thing, we forget about the good things we already have. Say no to obligations that aren’t essential. Put away the phone. Give yourself permission to take a quiet walk, paint your toes bright pink, light a candle, and pick up the child and dance. Invite a friend over and pour a glass of wine. No one will step in and make margin in your life. You have to be firm in making white space. I’ve found that that’s where all my brightest colors bloom.

There are seasons in life that are so busy that even the word margin feels a bit like a joke. I know when the twins were newborns, there was little room for margin. Just their sleep cycle alone kept me on my toes and barely sleeping myself for a stretch of months. This is where I think a pause does great work. No one should have to feel heavy with stress and scrolling the to do list all day. Even 15 or 30 minute breaks to do something silly or fun or quiet recharges us and makes us return to even our grungiest, most difficult work with a bit of joy. Thomas and I do one art activity a week. This is something I let myself get lost in for a bit of time. I feel no shame playing and coloring because I've seen how I bounce back into my work with more enthusiasm and focus.


4. 3 Good Things journaling


Pick a month to declare a gratitude reset. Heck, pick a week. We don’t need to always write down the blessings in our lives, but doing it for a bit of time can spark back to life that joy we left behind when life got busy or stressful or just such a overstuffed bag that gratitude sifted to the bottom. At the end of each day (for whatever amount of time) take a moment to replay the day.




Did you love that you dressed up and felt beautiful? Did you take extra time to love on someone? Did you make a new recipe and strike gold? Did you see some great thing someone else did? Write three good things down.

I kept this practice this summer. It was incredible. The things I wrote down were very eye opening. They helped me to really take a step back from my life and see how truly good it is. I had a ton of wonderful things that I was very, very quickly forgetting because of all the looming things I needed to fix or get done or get through.

I know November is just around the bend, and with it Thanksgiving. It may not be a bad month to take notes on your good things. Ann Voskamp's books are good recommendations for listening and listening to our gifts. And there are plenty of tags on Instagram for directed focus on the beautiful things and people in our lives.  But don't think your gratitude list has to have anything grand on it. Every time I take a shower I feel like a million bucks and a walk around my neighborhood brings me so much joy it's impossible for me to hide it on my face. Simple things. Simple things. 


5. “I am ready for this.”


It’s easy to be grateful for the good, but what do we make of the difficulties of our lives? I think we can find a way to be grateful for those too. Each struggle is a door to something new. If we didn’t struggle, than it would be of nature something we already know. Me? Becoming a wife: difficult. Becoming a mom: difficult. These things were struggles (are struggles) because they pull me from what I was to what I need to be.

Do you know that ache in your chest when your heart is raw and your entire body, mind, and spirit are processing the “foreign”, the burden, the difficult—you know you have to get from A to Z and you’re confounded as to how? That's tough stuff.

Some difficulties land in our laps as if from the sky and I don't mean that as a nod to heaven. These problems are random and may not have much meaning aside from the character that we come to exercise in dealing with them.

But I think there are some difficulties that we specifically take on because we were ready to do so. It could be problems in our marriages or our relationships with others. It could be in taking care of that underlying, nagging issue with the house or the finances. It could be in apologizing to someone, confronting someone, or just simply going to someone to be honest about something you have harbored for some time because you couldn't find the words for so long. It could be in seeing that your kid mouths off or that it is time to put the dog down. It could be a big conversation about why your family is doing things the way they are and if that's the path you want to keep going down. These are all examples of things that we should meet when we are ready and because we are ready we should do them with a touch of joy for being ready. This is when we can say: "I am ready for this. I am strong enough for this! I'm glad I'm here to do this work."


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What do you do to increase your gratitude ? What's that thing you do to recenter your life and plant your feet in joy? I would love to know!




2 comments:

  1. This was a very timely post for me - thank you! Just found your blog and love it.

    I've recently started making Sunday a day of rest and recharge (as it should be!). My hubby works every weekend so I felt bad resting while he worked, but I'm realizing it REALLY helps me slow down, be grateful, spend time with my boys, catch up on reading....and then I'm ready to tackle the week full force on Monday!

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    1. Jen, that is so smart! Everybody's battery & energy & rest looks different. You are smart to know what you need!

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