Speaking, Enacting, and Living Gratitude
ADVANCE CONFIDENTLY!
“To speak gratitude is courteous and pleasant, to enact gratitude is generous and noble, but to live gratitude is to touch Heaven.” -Johannes A. Gaertner
What does it mean to move from speaking gratitude to enacting gratitude to living gratitude? When we speak gratitude, we are engaged in the act of expressing our thanks or thankfulness to another. Speaking gratitude is the simplest and most common form of everyday gratitude.
When you expressed thanks to your Barista this morning for your grande, extra shot, non-fat, no whip, extra caramel, caramel brûlée latte, you were speaking gratitude. When I ordered my simple grande Christmas blend, and said thank you as it was handed to me through the window, I did the same.
Enacting gratitude is where we consciously decide to do something that involves some form of gratitude action. A great example most everyone understands and can relate to is the simple act of giving a gift. The gift can be something as small as a thank you card, a more robust message in a card or letter, buying a meal or a cup of coffee for a friend or stranger, or an even bigger gift for a birthday or special occasion.
When we begin to live gratitude, it shifts from being something we do sometimes or on a special occasion, to becoming a way of life. We gradually learn to live from gratitude, from the space of gratitude, and for gratitude. Gratitude as a way of life is a reframing of both our outlook and our perception. We move from taking life for granted to an inner awareness that suddenly expresses itself in everything we see, everything we do, and everything we are.
Gratitude can even be viewed as a state of consciousness. It involves opening your heart to the abundance of love and splendor that surrounds us in our earthly world every day.
When I watched the sun rise above the horizon this morning I was once again in awe of the splendor of the sun. This life-giving orb is taken for granted by countless thousands of individuals every day and for many years I was one of those individuals. I never really gave the sun much thought. Once I did, my perception changed and that’s the power of gratitude.
Sunsets are an easier grasp for most people because almost everyone has at one time or another experienced a cinematic sunset ablaze with the hues of burnt orange or crimson red against the backdrop of wispy cotton balls splashed across the sky.
The saying or phrase of “stop and smell the roses” suddenly derives new meaning when we realize the world is full of fragrance, and roses are just one simple yet beautiful element that demonstrates this fact.
When we live gratitude, we discover people have a fragrance as well…
It is the essence of their being, how they make us feel when we’re around them, what they have us thinking about and considering, the ideas and inspiration they openly share with those who are willing to listen can be life-changing!
My friend Chris Palmore from www.GratitudeSpace.com is one of those people. He is just one of many. His most recent book, Dear Gratitude is full of stories reflecting the lives and experiences of people who have embraced gratitude as a way of life.
His next endeavor is a bold one!
Dear 2020, his second Anthology, will give people an opportunity to reflect on this most challenging year to see if they can find the silver lining in what we are all painfully aware has been an incredibly difficult time in our history.
His hope is that gratitude can serve as a powerful elixir to ease some of that suffering by engaging in the cathartic practice of writing about the 2020 experience.
Chris knows all too well the pain of loss and grief and understands the difficulty of this experience. He also knows from his own experience just how much gratitude helped him process his own grief, pain, loss, and adversity. His only wish as a dedicated gratitude conductor is to create a safe space for potential healing with the life-altering power of gratitude.
The link below will give you an opportunity to express yourself in a way that just might be the beginning of a life-changing process for those not regularly accustomed to focusing on gratitude. Submissions are being accepted thru January 10th, but my suggestion is to submit your story or essay while you are inspired because if you say you’ll do it Someday, it will most likely never happen…
One of the most talked about and probably misunderstood ways of embracing gratitude as a way of life is some form of a gratitude practice. Having a gratitude practice is a great way to develop a gratitude lifestyle, but it’s also easy to get caught up in the practice and to begin to see it as more of a check the box kind of activity rather than a true lifestyle change.
Exercise is an activity that often gets a check the box approach rather than embracing movement and resistance training as a part of daily lifestyle. It’s a mindset shift. It’s the difference between asking did I get my 30 minutes in and checking the box if the answer is yes to, did I find a way to incorporate movement and activity into my life today?
I hope you can see the difference.
If you’re interested in embracing gratitude as a way of life, there are several practical methods you can use to begin the process. We can ask ourselves empowering questions and we can create activities that raise our level of gratitude awareness.
Here are a handful of easy to implement suggestions.
- Begin each day thinking of what we both are and can be grateful for!
- List at least 3 things we are grateful for!
- Imagine your life without some of the things we take for granted…
- Use a gratitude journal to capture all that we are grateful for…
- Use who, what, where and why to ask empowering questions of gratitude.
Examples:
Who inspired me today? Who provides small kind opportunities for interactions that lift my spirits or brighten my mood? What made me smile today? What touched me today? Where can I make a difference today? When did I feel gratitude today?
As a bonus, and to go a little deeper, you can also ask “how” questions.
Examples:
How can I experience more gratitude in my life? How can I be thankful for the struggles and challenges I’m currently facing? How fortunate am I?
There are hundreds of others… You get the idea, be creative, let’s commit today to living lives of GRATITUDE!
Here’s an additional resource to help with your gratitude questions as part of your daily gratitude practice. And remember, it’s a practice. Gratitude isn’t done with perfection; it’s about making a conscious commitment to think about ways of being grateful, expressing, and living gratitude.
Live a grateful life!
https://www.decideyourlegacy.com/10-gratitude-questions-that-can-change-your-life-forever/h
“Feeling gratitude and not expressing it is like wrapping a present and not giving it.” -William Arthur Ward
Keep Pedaling, Keep Going, Keep Growing!
Advance Confidently!
