Thanksgiving is one of my favorite holidays, not only for the opportunity to gather with loved ones in celebration, but for the reminder it provides of how I want to live every day of my life. I don’t mean that I want to make a daily ritual of stuffing myself with turkey, mashed potatoes and pie. What I mean is the desire to live every day in active gratitude for the abundance that is my life.
My heart overflows with gratitude in this experience I know as my life. No, I haven’t achieved all of which I dream nor do I have all that I covet, but I love my life just the same for all that it is in the moment.
When we focus on what we don’t have, we do an incredible disservice to all the abundance that is present. When we open our hearts to gratitude and allow it to displace the lack, resentment and doubt that try to take root in the crevices of our minds, we open ourselves to fuller, richer, more joyful lives.
So what exactly is gratitude and how can we practice it? According to the good people at Merriam-Webster, gratitude is “the state of being grateful: thankfulness.”
This may be an unsatisfying, non-specific answer for those who prefer more explicit directions when seeking a “how to” answer, but it precisely reflects the beauty of gratitude. Gratitude can be practiced – given and received – as easily and as far as our imaginations can roam: without limit.
Everywhere around us are opportunities great and small that, woven together, form the miracle of life itself infinitely worthy of gratitude.
Perhaps you are grateful for the body that is the vessel carrying your heart, mind and soul in this life, the body that enables you to wake up every day and experience the world around you. Or maybe you’re thankful for the place you call home, the space that provides shelter from the elements and somewhere to lay down each night to rest your weary body. Do you enjoy food that gives you sustenance and the energy to conquer another day? Has someone been kind to you, or perhaps you were even kind to yourself, in words and/or actions that brought a smile to your face? Everywhere we look there is reason for gratitude when our eyes and our hearts are open.
Gratitude is the fertile ground of expansion and abundance. Sow seeds of thanks and witness how life shifts from scarcity to prosperity all in the matter of our perspective.
