7 Practices To Cultivate Gratitude
In this video I share some practices to expand your natural state of gratitude within you, spreading it to those you love until it reverberates around the whole world. What I do know for sure is that gratitude is a miracle worker in our lives. With gratitude, there is an understanding that challenges are blessings, that failures are gifts, and that our teachers come in many forms. In the grace of gratitude, we become who we were always meant to be.
I notice the more I practice gratitude, the more it becomes a natural state of being that I dwell in. It happens one step at a time, allowing ourselves to return to our Divine essence which is inherently grateful for this opportunity to be expressed in the life experience. When we practice gratitude, we begin to see glimpses of that Divine spark within us. It is in all of us. With practices and with patience, we will return to our natural state of gratitude. This state of being is not dependent on anything in the external. It just is. I know it is possible to be in this state of consciousness more of the time. With Thanksgiving, we Give Thanks, and there is a collective group agreement to be enveloped in the vibration of gratitude. No wonder it is many people’s favorite holiday because it reminds us of who we are as Divine beings—full of gratitude and honoring all as Love.
7 Practices To Cultivate Gratitude
Here are 7 practices to awaken your natural state of gratitude this Thanksgiving:
1. Before your meal, go around the table and ask everyone to share one thing they are grateful for this year. This will uplift everyone and the food will taste better too.
2. Take everyone on a Gratitude Walk. Suggest that they contemplate as they are walking all the things they are grateful for in their life. Then, when you return home, you can share your gratitudes and experience.
3. Take a bunch of Thank You note cards and ask each person to write a heartfelt "Thank You" to one person that has made a difference in their life. Provide stamps so they can mail it out. Who knows, you may be the one receiving it!
4. Write a letter of gratitude to yourself. After all, you deserve acknowledgement also and the more you appreciate yourself, the more you will allow yourself to receive from the universe.
5. Give everyone at your table a Gratitude Journal. Have everyone write their name at the top of the first blank page. Pass it around and have each person at the table write what they love and appreciate about the person whose Journal they have. When the Gratitude Journal makes its way back to the owner, it will be full of love and gratitude for the person it belongs to. This is a great way to start a Gratitude Journal.
6. Play Musical Gratitude. This works well with large groups. Have everyone walk (or dance) around to the music. Every time the music stops, whomever you happen to be next to, you share what you are grateful for about them. When the music continues everyone moves about the room until the music stops again. You are now with a new partner whom you share your gratitudes with.
7. Read a quote about Gratitude before or after your meal or type them up and give them out to your guests. Here are some of my favorites:
“Let us be grateful to the people who make us happy; they are the charming gardeners who make our souls blossom.” -Marcel Proust
“Walk as if you are kissing the Earth with your feet.” -Thich Nhat Hanh
“Piglet noticed that even though he had a very small heart, it could hold a rather large amount of Gratitude.” -A.A. Milne, Winnie-the-Pooh
“In the end, though, maybe we must all give up trying to pay back the people in this world who sustain our lives. In the end, maybe it's wiser to surrender before the miraculous scope of human generosity and to just keep saying thank you, forever and sincerely, for as long as we have voices.” -Elizabeth Gilbert
“Let gratitude be the pillow upon which you kneel to say your nightly prayer. And let faith be the bridge you build to overcome evil and welcome good.” -Maya Angelou
“Acknowledging the good that you already have in your life is the foundation for all abundance.” -Eckhart Tolle
"To speak Gratitude is courteous and pleasant, to enact Gratitude is generous and noble, but to live Gratitude is to touch Heaven." -Johannes Gaertner
"Being Thankful is the law of increase. Complaining is the law of decrease." -J. Martin Kohe
"He is a wise man who does not grieve for the things which he has not, but rejoices for those which he has." - Epictetus
“If the only prayer you said was thank you, that would be enough.” - Meister Eckhart
I am so grateful for you. I see the Divine in you. You are a gift to this world. Happy Thanksgiving!
In Love & Gratitude,
Jenai