Gratefulness is a powerful way to alter our consciousness and have a deeper appreciation of the world around us. Practicing gratefulness, even for a few minutes in a journal, or a guided meditation, soothes the monkey mind and increases the level of beneficial chemicals running in our brains and bodies.
A movie trope from last century, one you might see in various kinds of family entertainment, would have the small kids on their knees at bedtime saying their prayers and thanking everyone they know, grandma and grandpa, their teacher, the milk delivery person and so on.
People don’t operate that way in our modern world, at least most people I know and presumably you do as well. It’s a great habit to have but it seems to have fallen out of favor.
When practicing gratefulness, you might think about your home, your family, your friends, your job, or various attributes of your life that tend to be taken for granted during the day.
Practicing appreciation and awareness of one’s wealth and well being makes it more real and tangible, even in light of the fact that you might spend measurable amounts of the day wishing for more time, more freedom and more stuff.
Our monkey minds are continually judging, evaluating and scheming to keep our lives under control and with luck and effort, do better, have more and be better at what we do.
In practicing gratefulness, we can take a break from this endless internal tumult and simply breathe, be, and appreciate all that we have right now. It’s amazingly easy to fall down the rabbit hole of consumerism, self-judgement, envy and identity-based purchasing decisions. All of these behaviors tend to pull our minds out of the present and away from simple appreciation of the moment.
In focused gratitude, we can practice and grow awareness around this simple fact: we are a miracle in this moment to be appreciated with awareness and compassion.
How deep do you go with gratefulness? How about your parents, your grandparents, their grandparents and all the way back to the first multi-cellular creature in your family tree. How about all the animals, plants and organisms that have lived so you can be alive.
How about your future self and your past selves. Are you grateful for all that you’ve learned and the growth you have incorporated?
When you really get down to it, you have a heck of a lot to be grateful for. You can expand your gratefulness to include a universe that created you, somehow, out of the myriad trillions of stars, here you are.
Practicing gratefulness can be as simple as writing down each night before bed three things to be grateful for, or as involved as a prostration practice to purify the mind and cut down the ego.
With time and practice, gratefulness as a habit begins to imbue your life with a sense you are living a reward in the very act of being. The perambulations of your monkey mind are something best ignored or watched with detachment. In gratitude, we act with kindness and generosity toward other beings and from that we too are healed and made more whole.
