10,000 Gratitudes
Gratitude is not a singular moment of emotion; true gratitude is a state of being.
Tracking Gratitude
Have you ever been told to make a list of 5 gratitudes at the end of the day or 10 things you’re grateful for to start your day off right? I’ve tried to follow these typical suggestions. Although I thought it was good to be grateful, making it a “should do” made me focus more on the number than on the feeling of being grateful.
“Mother of 10,000 things” is one of my favorite phrases from a version of the I Ching. That phrase inspired me to start a gratitude journal to reach 10,000 things for which I am grateful. Instead of requiring 5 to 10 gratitudes per day, I would add as many as I could whenever I thought of one. The journal experience began beautifully with a true gratitude process. However, since I decided not to repeat any, I eventually began making little adjustments to ones I had already written. So once again I became more focused on achieving the quantity instead of emphasizing the feeling of gratitude. I stopped after about 1,500 gratitudes.
Important Lessons About Gratitude
Although these methods did not work for me, their failure taught me some important lessons about gratitude.
Be grateful for each moment - each thought, each feeling and each sensation.
Slow down enough to be fully present and bathe in gratitude for the experience.
Gratitude isn’t about creating a list of “good” things; gratitude is about appreciating everything in life.
Grateful Moments
Gratitude for life begins with appreciation of our very existence. I am amazed by the awesome human body - our brain and nervous system, our heart and lungs, and our digestive and musculo-skeletal systems. I am grateful for each of the 6,000 thoughts I think, the 23,000 breaths I take, and the 100,000 heartbeats I experience each day.
I am grateful for all the ideas and images my mind creates, even the fearful projections that attempt to keep me safe. I am grateful for my mind’s ability to think about and question my thoughts and to shift my thoughts and beliefs when they do not serve me.
I am grateful for every heartfelt emotion and feeling. I am grateful for my loved ones who still have beating hearts and those who are now only memories I cherish. I am grateful that I can feel love and grief, joy and sadness, celebrations and disappointments. I am grateful that my feelings are numbed when I need to heal. I am grateful that I can process my feelings and emotions and can influence them with thoughts and actions, such as affirmations and breathing exercises.
I am grateful for each sensation that my body experiences - sights, sounds, smells, taste and textures. I am grateful for the warm sun and a cool breeze. I am grateful for the rain and snow. I am grateful for the cycles of my life - the four seasons, the monthly cycles and the daily cycles.
I am grateful that I can control my thoughts, emotions, words and actions. I am grateful that I get to experience the integration of my mind, heart and body as peace, love and abundance.
Celebrating Experiences
When I focus too much on the past and future, I cannot be fully present to all that is happening in this moment, and I get too busy to acknowledge and celebrate all I am, do and have. By staying present, I can joyfully celebrate each moment as a complete experience.
I am grateful that I can produce good work, and that I can solve problems. I am grateful that I can celebrate achieving my goals and learning from my mistakes. I am grateful that I am strong, capable, skillful, and able to learn and grow. I am grateful when my clients transform their lives in big and small ways, and we celebrate their wins. I am grateful for being able to step into new careers that were inspired by the significant events in my life.
I am grateful that I recognize my weaknesses and can ask for help from others. I am grateful that I get to work with others and share our experiences, both positive and negative ones. I am grateful when we come together to help each other in times of need. I am grateful that when people lose material possessions during a natural disaster, yet saved the people and pets, they celebrate saving the most important things in their lives.
At the end of the day, I am grateful and celebrate that I got to experience another earthly spin. Although that gratitude repeats each day, each day was a unique day for which to be grateful.
Appreciating Life
I am grateful for our infertility, which led me and my husband to adopt our son. I couldn’t imagine life without him.
I am grateful for my brother’s experience of losing his home when he got sick, because that led me to learn about and to do my part to create affordable housing. I am grateful for the experience of grief over my brother’s death that led me to discover my life vision and started my journey as a life coach.
I am grateful that some people who survive cancer say it was a blessing, because it called them to live more fully and purposefully. They are grateful for each day.
I am grateful that the universe evolved to the current moment, where I can inhabit a tiny speck of land on a molten ball of rock with a cool crust, that has beautiful sunrises and sunsets, and plants and animals and over 8 billion people. I am grateful for my humble insignificance in comparison to the whole, and for my noble significance as an integral part of the whole.
Living In Gratitude
All the ideas for ways of expressing gratitude contain the underlying principle that expanding your awareness of everything you have to be grateful for expands your understanding, joy and experience of every aspect of your life. You live more fully and are present in each moment.
I invite you to explore living from a state of gratitude. Here are some ways to get you started.
Mini reset - try hourly - Set a timer to reset or leave a written reminder every place you’ll notice it. Pause a moment, take a deep breath to center yourself, and then feel into the gratitude that you have for that moment and for everything in your life, the gifts and the challenges that have led you to grow into your current version of yourself.
Rituals to celebrate about 5Xs per day - It’s easier to create habits when you associate them with an existing one. Creating a ritual that you enjoy and want to do makes it even easier. If you have a morning routine, a bedtime routine and three meals or snacks, then you have at least 5 opportunities per day to create a ritual of expressing gratitude.
a. Your morning ritual can include gratitudes for waking up another day, set an intention for all the wonderful things you will use this day for, and to express gratitude for all the people you will be with and send love to all.
b. Mealtime gratitudes include the meal itself and everyone and everything that made it possible for you to have the meal.
c. Your bedtime gratitudes can include all of your accomplishments big and small, all the interactions with others, and all the abundance you have that allows you to enjoy this life as comfortably as you do.
Reframe your stories of the “best” and “worst” things that have happened in your life to demonstrate how both were blessings and key shifts to impact your life positively. Look for the gift you received from every challenging opportunity. For example, the loss of a job may have been the catalyst for changing your direction and discovering your perfect career. A bad relationship teaches you what to avoid in a good relationship. A natural disaster can remind us that our material possessions are not the most important things.
Practicing living in a state of gratitude creates an opportunity for something greater than listing 5 or 10 gratitudes per day or even accumulating 10,000 gratitudes in a journal. You have the opportunity and privilege of actually experiencing more than 10,000 gratitudes. True gratitude is a constant state of being that results in joyful celebration of each moment of life.
Want to dive deeper? Join me for a free Energize Your LIFE Vision Workshop.