Sunday, February 3, 2013

Practicing Gratitude ~ Mariella


My goodness, this was an eventful weekend. With two minor injuries in the family, both requiring urgent medical attention, and car damage, unrelated, it has been challenging to keep my sense of humour! 

Today I woke up like the weather; cloudy, heavy and grey. It took going out in the late afternoon drizzle to ‘go pick tomatoes’... 


...to gain some objectivity on the matter. And I came to the conclusion that one area of my life is lacking attention and that is dedicated intent-full me time! 
I have found that one of the practices most effective in times of trouble is the practice of gratitude. As a means of delving into one another’s days, my family have cultivated the habit of performing a little ritual in the evenings during dinner. It goes like this:

Everyone gets a turn to say:  What they are grateful for today.  
                                         What they found challenging today. 
                                         What they are excited about today.  

That way it ends off on a high note and I, as a parent have the added opportunity to hear about issues at school that my children may not have thought to tell me about. The most important part is to highlight the positive events in the day and to feel real gratitude for them. 



After my trip around the garden with my little basket of tomatoes and herbs I have decided to crank the gratitude thing up a notch by getting myself a lightweight little Gratitude Diary, it will live in my bag and as I see things that reaffirm my faith in this magical life, I’ll whip out my diary and commit them to paper. That way, my arsenal against down days can build. I recall telling someone last week, ‘don’t sweat the small stuff’. Well here we go…..

No comments:

Post a Comment