Gratitude, shmatitude.
Just let me enjoy my pumpkin pie in peace.

What’s that, you say? You’re tired of hearing about gratitude?

Truth be told, so am I.

I know that’s a surprise, coming from Miss Too Darn Happy, perennial practitioner and encourager of gratitude.

I actually get a smidge annoyed in November at the volley of articles peppering me to be thankful.

Don’t get me wrong. I am thankful for the attention this month draws to gratitude.

However, once turkey day passes, this emotion tends to get shoved back into the closet faster than your willpower in the presence of holiday sweets, only to be pulled out and dusted off next year for another limited engagement.

So how do you move from feeling resentful of and over-stuffed from the special occasion glut of gratitude to joyfully making room at your everyday table for tasty and satisfying servings of thankfulness?

Change your point of view: gratitude is good for you

You may hear a lot about how it’s important to recognize and be thankful for everything in your life, but did you know gratitude is good for you?

Let me count some of the benefits as drawn from Robert A. Emmons, author of thanks! How the new science of gratitude can make you happier, and Deborah Norville, author of The Power of Thank You:

Enjoying closer family ties

Feeling better about life as a whole.

Having more energy and determination.

Getting more sleep and becoming healthier

Being less envious of those with more possessions.

These and more are listed in my free ebook, Practicing Gratitude and Discovering Joy: 30 Days to a Happier You.

It’s like having all the advantages of eating your veggies because they’re good for you paired with the sheer yumminess of desserts. Win!

Understand that culture doesn’t want you grateful

Being grateful means you’ve learned to be content where you are.

Think for a minute about the messages from the shows, music and hundreds of ads that bombard you daily.

Their goal is to make you feel you are missing out so you conform and buy their product.

Look at all those cool people doing cool things with cool goodies you don’t have!

You could be cool, too, if you just buy what we’re selling.

They want you to be envious, to look at who you are and what you have as just not enough, to fill that emptiness you didn’t even know you had, with their stuff.

If you are armed with gratitude, you have greater walk-away power from that negative message.

Please know that I am not against stuff; I am against buying, having or doing anything without truly understanding the underlying reasoning, and also for the drag it can be on your finances, especially if you incur debt to purchase it.

Learn how to see

Culture attempts to mask the abundance of blessings in your life with both their loudly overt and quietly subliminal messages.

If you are having difficulty finding your blessings, here is another snippet from my Practicing Gratitude ebook to get you rolling:

Draw an imaginary circle three feet around where you are right now. Carefully view everything in that space as a potential object of your thankfulness. Here are just a few things you might see: a floor, a roof, windows, air, clothing, jewelry, shoes, your hair, appliances, fingers and toes. Think beyond the object to what it represents for you: freedom, relationships, the ability to work or to hold a loved one’s hand, security, safety, warmth, etc. Express your gratitude for those things. Nothing is too big or small to qualify.

Take note of who or what is bothering you today. Change your perspective so you can see the good, and express your gratitude. Did you have a run-in with a surly person? Give thanks for the reminder to always be gracious and respectful.

And from a previous post:

Former Prisoner of War Commander Paul Galanti, said “There’s no such thing as a bad day when you have a door knob on the inside of the door.”

Another wartime prisoner in a concentration camp, Corrie ten Boom, wrote of being grateful for the continual infestation of fleas in her barracks, because it kept the guards away. She and her sister were thus able to read and share the encouragement of the Bible with the other women.

Gratitude for a working doorknob and the torment of fleas.

The bottom line is that you can learn to express gratitude for anything in your life when you develop the ability to see.

And then it’s a matter of practice

Once you learn how to see, it’s a matter of practice.

Like jumping hurdles, playing an instrument, or learning to add and subtract.

It just takes practice.

Here are the three basic steps:

1. Become more aware. If you need the extra nudge, set the alarm on your phone to go off during the day and perform a random gratitude check on your circumstances when it does.

2. Choose where to focus. If you look for the good, you will find it. It really is that simple.

3. Write it all down. This reinforces your expression of thankfulness and gives you examples to look back on when you need a boost.

Now go get some pie, and be sure to slather it with gratitude. And whipped cream. And savor your newfound ability to enjoy gratitude year round!

Gratitude is our ability to see the grace of God, morning by morning, no matter what else greets us in the course of the day. ~Craig Barnes

Question: Where are you in your practice of gratitude? Do you need help or do you have a tip to share? Jump into the comments and share!

Sharing at NOBH, Better Mom, Finding Heaven, PYHO

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