[REPOST] On Gratitude, Part II

An exercise in A to Z

[Image Description: Four rocks that are painted blue are lying on a sidewalk. Each one has text written on it. The text spells out “It’s not happiness that brings gratitude. It’s gratitude that brings us happiness”] Image Source: Photo by Donald Giannatti on Unsplash

Gratitude is something that I’ve tried to make a constant practice in my life, but always have trouble being consistent with. I’ve done listing 3 things I’m grateful for before bed. I’ve done listing 3 good things that happened that day. I’ve bought countless guided gratitude journals (that are all about half-filled out sitting in my nightstand drawer). I’ll stick with the practice for a while, and then something will come up and I’ll fall out of the habit.

That being said, consistent or not, it really is a very helpful tool for me. I’m very guilty of getting stuck in the mental loop of focusing only on what went wrong or is going wrong in my life, especially when challenges start stacking up. Gratitude practice helps shift the focus away from what we don’t have to what we do have. Sometimes, even in the worst of situations, we can find something to be grateful for (key word is sometimes).

One specific gratitude exercise that was suggested to me recently is called the A to Z gratitude list. You literally write (or type) the letters A to Z out and you fill in whatever words you can think of that start with each letter. X, Y and Z can be real challenging, so I don’t get too hung up if I can’t fill in every single letter. I just fill in what I can.

Here’s my A to Z gratitude list for today:

Air in my tires

Blankets

Candles

Dogs

E

Friday nights

Girlfriends

Helping out at home

Introspection

Jokes

K

Long weekends

Massages

Neighbors

O

Pushing through fear

Quiet

Reading

Sleeping in

Tea

U

V

Writing

X

You all 😊

Zoom

Hope maybe this might be a useful tool for your too in cultivating some gratitude ❤️